A Long Year
The truth is, I’ve written this blog post twice before; both times, some mysterious forces of Squarespace managed to delete the content. Perhaps I should be thankful, for after this I’ll probably be able to remember each detail of 2021 with everlasting clarity.
So thanks, Squarespace! The day I finally sit down and get serious with HTML/CSS will be the day you cease to know peace.
And so it was a long year.
Between the seasons, my daily scenery violently shifted far too many times than I would have preferred. From school to pandemic school, Job A to Job B, heart to heart, friend to friend, and from city to city to countless city: I have traveled to many places in as many ways possible. Here’s a really, really long summary.
Text colored in blue designates some self-reflection - my little thoughts. The things I say there can get a bit personal and vulnerable, so although I am completely fine sharing these thoughts here, you do not have to read them if you feel uncomfortable doing so.
Good Night, Senior Year
FEBRUARY 2021
Turned 22!
Fell deeply in love with hiking. Thanks, Thea and Harry.
MARCH 2021
A couple of friends and I started Stratless, a platform intended to assist esports teams in organizing scrimmages, analyzing their performance, and a whole lot more.
My roommates (Mattie and Milo) and I visited Green Valley Lake for a pseudo-spring break, since USC did not have have one in the calendar. Of course, there was lots of snow.
I was not in the greatest state of mind leading up to this trip, which made me understand how privy we are to our feelings as little human people regardless of where we are or what we are doing. Simultaneously, I discovered that good friends are a great reason to keep chugging along.
I guess – we are all just people trying to make it by til thee next time we can fall asleep or turn on thee Nintendo or find someone to love.
- Matthew Horne
APRIL 2021
Built my first mechanical keyboard! Design02 from Arctangent, Instant65 PCB (really wanted that underglow), Gateron Yellow switches, and PBT Notion keycaps. Nowadays she flaunts some POM Jellies. I can fully understand the allure of this hobby now.
MAY 2021
My time with Gamebreaking Studios came to an end. 😿 GB was a lovely place to find my footing in the games industry. I treasure every moment I spent with Dru, Taylor, Sean, and everyone else; what I learned from just listening in to conversations truly blew me away daily. This sounds like some kind of LinkedIn spiel for #content, but I’m serious - I loved everyone there. I hope I’ll be able to work with you all again someday!
Finally completed a full 6 mile loop of the Griffith Park hike. It only took 4 years!
I graduated
Like Ping Pong
JUNE 2021
Started working as a UI/UX artist at Demiurge Studios, a game development studio located in Boston.
Due to my new employment, I had about three days notice before my lease ended to move cross country. So many boxes! Whee!
I get the strong feeling I’ll be back to L.A. sometime in the next 5-10 years. A great chunk of who I am right now grew out of the influence the city has had on me in these past few developmental years. That, and there’s a certain kind of peace in the sprawl and sunset of L.A. that I can’t seem to find anywhere else.
Visited Boston with Arman for a short period to go apartment hunting. The city really is a representative classical beauty of New England and I love how pedestrian-friendly the urban layout is.
JULY 2021
Moved… to Boston!
Immediately took a trip to New York City with a bunch of friends - the same ones I began work on Stratless with (Kevin, Tucker, and Noah). Much walking was done through Central Park, the Met… y’know.
Learned that very few restaurants open past 10pm in Boston. This shift from Los Angeles food culture has greatly damaged me.
AUGUST 2021
Peter came to visit Boston as part of his cross-country “let’s see how much PTO I can take” journey. Enclosed is a picture taken with his weird 360-degree camera.
More traveling! NYC again, this time with Jessica and Ethan. Saw nxtime - a band I actually became a fan of after watching them perform in Central Park back in July.
New York is a city I think I would like to live in. The dull roar of never-ending activity is somehow deeply comforting and calming. I’d like to slip into the folds of the city and find a place to sit and watch the world around me - or even better, become a part of it. Perhaps this sentiment stems out of a transformative desire, or perhaps I just really want to pay more rent per square foot. Something something finding yourself in your 20s something.
SEPTEMBER 2021
How much traveling can one human do in a waning-pandemic summer? I strived to answer this question by bussing down to New Haven, CT, where Tucker, Kevin, and I hiked… a mountain, whose name I cannot recall. The view was beautiful though, and I nearly passed out! There just aren’t enough nearby accessible hikes on the East Coast for a carless youngster like me to keep in shape with…!
And finally, I attended my long-awaited Japanese Breakfast concert. Michelle Zauner’s stories have always hit a little too close to home, so naturally, I wanted to go and feel that pang in person. Yet for some reason, I did not feel that pang. Music is personal - I couldn’t feel the same way that I did alone as I did in a tightly-packed crowd.
A Little Too Much
I define OCTOBER 2021 as the turning point of this year and probably my existence, even more so than I do graduating and becoming a working adult. Lots of little thoughts ahead - skip this section if you are not comfortable.
• • •
In mid-October, my mother suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm. My brother and father thankfully found her early, less than an hour after she had experienced it. They were able to rush her to the hospital and get her in intensive care/surgery immediately. I was in Boston. I flew home that night.
Doctors told us that the artery-sealing surgery was very successful. That she would make a good recovery.
When doctors tell you that as your intubated mother lays frail and slack in an ICU bed, you don’t know how to react. All you have is fear, uncertainty, and questions, so many questions. Questions like when will she wake up? why her? why do bad things happen to the people who deserve it the least? how can i sit and eat at the dinner table, watching my brother try on a halloween costume, laughing at the cat’s antics as if nothing happened? what if things don’t end well? why her? what am i feeling now? what do i do now? what happens next?
No one has the answers. You just sit and wait and do your best and pray to no one in particular.
My mom is doing fine. After a couple of weeks in the ICU, hospital, and rehab, she really did make a good recovery; as of the time that I am writing this post (Christmas Eve!), she’s doing perfectly fine considering the factors. She’s cooking again, joking, making her usual weird jokes. That’s the most that I’ll say: she’s doing great.
As this aneurysm has played out, I’ve thought a lot about my role as a daughter, as an independent adult, and as a kid. Taking care of my mom felt like becoming the parent to a large child, protective yet impatient, with a ball of sad rage in the pit of my stomach asking how did this all come to be?. I love my mother, no doubt, but I was so confused and so hurt. Was early adulthood ever supposed to be this hard? What happened to being a kid? Especially in this pandemic - it felt like I had lost so much of my youth to this, to that, and now to my mother’s brain stabbing her in the back…
And I was angry at myself for having felt this. I should be focusing on her recovery, just thinking about her. And yes, that was 99% of my day, but that 1% where I felt angry, just purely angry - I was ashamed of that. In an attempt to quell this, I told myself that it was okay to be angry. It was okay to feel feelings. I guess it helped, but really, sometimes our minds like to work against us. In the end, it was the passing of time and my mother’s steady recovery that calmed the tide in my mind.
Since OCTOBER 2021, I have come to a few conclusions that seem to make sense. We will feel a lot of pain as time passes. Nothing is ever fair and we are never equipped to do what life asks of us. But somehow, we find a way.
the body is a blade that moves while your brain is writhing
knuckled under pain, you mourn - but your blood is flowing
- Michelle Zauner (Japanese Breakfast) - “The Body is a Blade”
Anyways
THE SECOND HALF OF OCTOBER 2021
Visited Los Angeles for a long-planned trip to see my favorite band, The Strokes! Met up with a lot of friends from school and from life - people I love very, very much. Plus, my old cat, Blintz. Some activities:
A trip to a pumpkin patch and corn maze (the corn maze was not very hard, which was disappointing)
Brunch
Visiting my alma matter, USC, and popping in to some of the classes I used to be a teacher’s assistant for: Anatomy of a Game and Introduction to Streaming for Games. Hi, Gordon!
Getting my nails done at a very pink, very flowery salon (it was nice, but a bit intimidating)
KBBQ with the old USC Overwatch team that I used to manage. I love my players very much!
Testing some of the student games that are going through USC’s Advanced Game Development yearlong development pipeline
SEEING THE STROKES!!! (they played “Call it Fate, Call it Karma” live - I was so blown away from elation that I dropped my credit card midway through the song and had to spend the second half pawing around on the floor)
I really needed this trip. It was a reminder that I’m not alone, that I have the best friends in the world, that L.A. has the best sunsets, and that no matter what, there is always something to feel good about. Sorry that the latter part is kind of cheesy, but you can’t deny it‘s true.
NOVEMBER 2021
Returned home to care for my mother for a couple of months
Lots of petting my brother’s cat, Booba
DECEMBER 2021
Went bouldering for the first time with some gamer friends! We intended to go to one facility at first, but it caught on fire as soon as we arrived, so we went to another. Either way, climbing was fun and my upper body was very sore.
Took a brief trip back to Boston for another long-awaited concert, this time for Baroness. My first metal concert and first concert at a small, <200 person venue! While there, I rented a camera and did a couple of photoshoots for some friends. Overall, a grand old time.
Photoshoots are one of my favorite activities to do with friends. Aside from the whole forcing them into uncomfortable positions thing, it scratches my itch to create art in a much quicker method than, say, illustration. Plus, I love showing my friends the final products. I want them to see themselves in the light that I see them in - lots of candid, happy moments. Lots of laughs and joy. Hopefully they feel more confident in their appearance afterwards as well. :)
And In Conclusion,
As I said - this year was a little bit too much. I took a lot of damage. But, well, it happened, and I survived.
I’m going out of this year feeling a lot better than I did going in. My mom’s aneurysm has given me the chance to think a lot about life, existence, and love. I feel better, and it feels good to feel better. It feels good to finally feel hungry again, for growth and for joy.
Hopefully I haven’t spoken too soon… who knows what can happen in this last week before 2022?
Anyways, thanks for reading! The next update won’t be this long. Probably.
I owe it to the timing of companions I survived the year at all, at all, at all.
- Michelle Zauner (Japanese Breakfast) - “This House”
