hello, again
it's been a very difficult year for me. last month, i finally managed to crawl out of a deep, depressive state; one worse than i had experienced in a long time. the "current state of the world" certainly made things a lot worse, but in general, a lot of things in my life were going very badly. but...! i am here, and i am alive.
in the back of my mind, i had planned to return to blogging, but my heart was simply not in it. i just didn't feel right about inflicting my woes onto unsuspecting readers; this is a terrible habit that i have been trying to kick. bluesky has been an awful vice for me, in this regard. when i'm in distress, the temptation to reach for the quick-release valve of "posting" is irresistible. and yet... what good does it actually accomplish?
ach, you know what? enough philosophizing about posting online. i want to share the things that have been bringing me joy in bleak times. here's a few of them.
modding a game boy advance & taking more gbcam photos
i've been itching to do this for a while. the form factor of the original Game Boy Advance is pretty ideal to me, but the dim screen leaves much to be desired. of course, there have been backlit screen mods for handheld Nintendo consoles for quite some time—but i just never got around to trying one until now.
i bought the FunnyPlaying M2 kit, since a friend had good results with their GBA SP kit. soldering is optional—only required for wiring up the settings to be accessible via button presses—so it was pretty approachable for me. (i have never soldered anything in my life.) this kit requires a custom plastic shell to fit the new display, so i picked up a new transluscent pink shell, along with some new buttons while i was at it.
it turned out so lovely! taking photos with the Game Boy Camera is a breeze, now that i can actually see the screen clearer. the display is so crisp and beautiful. although, the touch sensor for adjusting the display’s settings is kind of finicky, so i might actually enlist a friend’s help with soldering after all. eheh.
traditional art
like painting with watercolors and ink!!! or drawing with markers!!! it’s actually really fun. i’ve talked about this before in another blog post, so i won’t rehash the subject too much.
i have felt very disconnected from art, and my desires, and all the complicated ways that those two concepts connect. but traditional art has been a really useful outlet for me. i end up focusing more on having fun with the process, instead of fretting about having a flawless end result. it’s gotten me to relax and take it easy. i’m still trying to untangle a lot of emotions around creating… but at the very least, i’m having fun with painting.
spending time with friends offline
as someone who’s been a strange hermit all their life, and struggled to have any kind of social life offline… this is a huge change for me! turns out, it can be really fun to go places with people! whether that’s going out to parks, looking at weird stuff at an antique store, or just getting coffee out somewhere… it has been genuinely so freaking healing for me.
i dunno if i can offer any meaningful advice on how to achieve this, because i always feel like i accidentally stumble into social situations. but… maybe there’s something deeper than that. it has taken a lot of bravery for me to be open enough around people, to let my guard down bit by bit, and to be myself instead of hollowly performing my “Neurotypical Persona”.
ok…!! that’s all for now. i’d like to get back into the habit of blogging, so hopefully i will post again soon. but i’d love to hear from any readers—what kind of things have been bringing you joy lately? i wanna know!