I can't stop sketching.

When I was a child, my mother used to read out loud to me and my two sisters. My older sister would sit and listen, while my little sister would fidget or pet the dog. Sometimes she would play with toys as she listened. While both of them were mostly well-behaved, I was unable to focus or listen. I was much more interested in climbing the bookshelf than paying any attention to what was being read. This went on for years. I rarely processed what was being read, and honestly, I don't remember much of those books—aside from the ones I read again in my teens. That was until I played Donkey Kong Country at my grandmother’s house on the Super Nintendo that my aunt had left there for anyone visiting to play. My older cousin had recently been given a fancy new Nintendo 64, so he had less interest in keeping the old SNES around, and it was left for anyone visiting my grandmother to enjoy.

After obsessively playing that game during a weekend I spent at her house, I wanted to keep playing when it was time to leave. However, I got a stern no from my parents on my wishes for a copy of my own. But something we did have at home was paper and pencils.

When it came time for my mom to read to us, I grabbed the paper, pencils, and a stack of dot matrix printer paper. I drew the first three levels of Donkey Kong Country in a line. This progressed a lot over the years. Similar to a lot of kids, I got heavily into comics for a while. That started with Captain Underpants and eventually I moved onto some Marvel and DC stuff as well. I started drawing my own endings to the stories because the only stuff I had access to was what was in the library. We never had tons of money for that type of entertainment. As I moved on from comics, my older sister started taking art classes. Allegedly, I did too, but I don't have any memory of them. Knowing me, I was likely distracted and busy messing with other kids to actually learn much. Around this point, my sister started bugging me that all I could do was draw flat objects. If I wanted my sketches to look "real," I would have to learn to shade and draw in perspective. She pointed me to Dr. Seuss as a reference. I started drawing cubes and blocks, almost akin to the video game Qbert. I kept drawing on all that dot matrix paper. I drew so much that my parents bought me a box of the stuff.

When I aged past 13, something changed. This adolescent crankiness that most people go through. I remember a day when I was mad or upset about something. I don’t even know what started it. The end result was I shredded most of the things I'd drawn, put them in large trash bags, and told my parents to toss them. I remember my mom was quite upset with me at the time. I was confused by this, but as an adult, I get it. Only a few things I drew back then still exist. My mom has a couple of drawings, and my Oma had a drawing of stacks of cubes on her fridge for 15 years. That was a creative hobby I had for a long, long time. I found other creative outlets after that. I started writing music and playing with LEGO Mindstorms. The main thing that stuck was creative video games—stuff like SimCity and RollerCoaster Tycoon. I also got involved with racing flat-water kayaks, and between my interest in computers, music, and kayaking, I dropped just about all other creative activities. Eventually, I’d cut the music out as well. I actually blame my first full-time job for this. I felt drained at the end of the day and just wanted to sit and play Heroes of Newerth or Counter-Strike.

Then I dropped sports to focus on "important" things—work and my girlfriend. Eventually, I moved out and ended up taking up streaming as a hobby alongside my soulless fast food job. Depression followed, and the rest is history. I did almost nothing creative outside of video games and streaming. I think my job had a lot to do with it. When I finally left that job, I had to stream so much to keep afloat financially that I still had almost no time to myself. The little time I did have was spent drowning in my own depression after having recently broken up with my partner. The thing that slowly started to shift this was when my parents gave me their old record player. Initially, I started buying records, but this then shifted into buying more hardware at thrift stores. My extended family found out I was into that as a hobby, and suddenly I had more gear than I knew what to do with. Half of it didn’t work. The nice stuff I took to repair shops to be fixed, while the other stuff I took apart and fixed myself.

This gave me an odd spark of creativity in physical reality—something I hadn’t felt in a really long time. However, the depression still held me back in a lot of ways. After going through a summer of therapy in 2023, I started keeping a journal. It was an impromptu thing that I had discussed with my therapist, but I had shrugged off as probably not helpful. But I stuck with it. The longer I kept it, I’ve found it’s turned into to-do lists rather than writing about myself. When I was packing to move, I stopped writing. I couldn’t focus, and the stress was really high at the time. Thankfully, the two months of closing on this apartment flew by faster than I expected, and the process of moving in was surprisingly easy.

I started to write a little bit once I’d moved. However, I didn’t feel as much need. I still carried the notebook and the pencils, even though I didn’t have much to say. I find it really easy to write when I’m upset at someone or something. It is easiest to write when I’m mad at myself. I think my last counselor would have a field day with this, but a few weeks ago, I sketched a candle while sitting at a bar as I sipped my beer. It was nostalgic and oddly comforting. Since then, I’ve drawn something almost every day. Yesterday, I bought a sketchbook and higher-quality pencils instead of the dollar store ones I had before.

I don’t know what this means. I don’t know why I’m doing it. But my spirits have been higher in the past week than they have been in most of my adult life. There’s something about rediscovering a pastime like this after almost forgetting you ever even did it. I think I’m going to stick with this one, alongside my obsession with plants and hi-fi electronics. I think that this rediscovery probably says something about my state of mind—where my head is at currently. Maybe it’s the sunlight in the new apartment, or perhaps I’m actually happy. Whatever it is, I like it, and I can’t stop sketching.

Stream this week will be Tuesday - Thursday so I can get to work on the next big video project next Friday. This week I will finish FoTF and another small project I started this weekend.