Well, um, who saw this coming? Who saw any of *gestures broadly* any of this coming? It is actually pretty wild to take note of the fact that my last post came nearly seven years ago. So, has anything changed in that span? Um, well, let's see:
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- When we last left off in 2019, things were kind of rough on the health front (in large part due to my still-unresolved sinus problems) and I was coming off an incredibly stressful high school baseball season in which the Varsity coaches had been fired for abuse, which proved to be a greater betrayal of trust to me emotionally than I would have guessed. Due largely to the backing of way more folks than I would of guessed, I wound up applying for and getting the Varsity head coach position for the 2020 season. So, maybe there existed the chance for things to improve on that end, right?
- So, um, then 2020 happened... A worldwide pandemic that shuts down most aspects of our society, kills millions, and continues to present a health crisis with major short-term and long-term implications certainly can change things. Having grown up in what I call "survival mode" for most of my youth and large swaths of adulthood, covid most certainly hit on all of the horrible anxieties associated with just trying to get through things and literal survival felt paramount over anything else. I definitely don't feel like I'm anywhere close to being on the same level emotionally or motivationally that I was prior to the onset of the pandemic, nor has my concentration been as good as it was pre-covid. :/
- The years that followed after things opened back up were kind of a mélange that really ran together in terms of sameness. I did wind up coaching Varsity for four seasons, including winning a regular season conference title, knocking off a top-seeded team in states, and seeing a couple of players that I coached get drafted in recent years. If I am being fully open, though, it never really felt fun. My focus for coaching was always about team building and positive effort/motivation, which led to much success over the years without me ever having to fixate on wins and losses as a primary motivating factor (which I disagree with as a concept). Unfortunately, the hyper-privatization of travel teams and instruction in a very affluent area of CT led to very few kids entering high school in a good position to actually play for a team, as they were told by parents and private coaches that their own stats and being visible for college coaches was all that mattered. Please contain your surprise here, but almost none of these kids actually played in college. After getting stuck with an antagonizing assistant coach and receiving abuse from parents (as well as total outsiders), the enjoyment was sucked dry and this became what I never wanted coaching to be - a job that I was only doing because it loosely involved baseball. Following the 2024 campaign, the situation was so atrocious and other aspects in my life were so far from what I wanted that it was time to move on. Honestly, it *should* have happened earlier, but I kept holding on in hopes that the environment would revert to what it was when things were fun and/or that I could fix it. That just wasn't going to happen, unfortunately. I miss baseball and coaching a lot, but what I miss is the dynamic that existed closer to 2010 than 2024. That realization was important.
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- So, speaking of realizations, let's get to the biggest one, which was that the other significant life event for me in 2024 was coming out as being trans. I've never strayed from heavy topics on this blog and won't start now, although I don't think that too many details are really necessary. The Cliff's Notes version is that while I was aware for years (even decades) of most of the characteristics that made me trans, I did not know that they were pieces to an actual puzzle. After allowing myself to experience aspects of femininity that I had repressed, a lot of things made sense and I felt levels of positive self-valuation that had not existed since elementary school. With the support of my family, friends, and a gaming community that I had met through A Link to the Past Randomizer (ALTTPR), I was able to try out things in more low stakes environments. The interesting thing is that even when the down moments hit or I was faced with more momentous aspects of transitioning, there was not a doubt that this was the right thing for me.
I changed my name to Emily in the fall of 2024 and have taken a great deal more steps since then toward becoming a person who feels like she is actually me, rather than just trying to muddle through life in a role that never fit. Again, it's certainly not all sunshine and rainbows, but the differences that I feel in terms of openness, comfort, and self-care are night and day from what they were just a few years ago. I am still trying to navigate this new version of the world in which I find myself and life in this country can often be exceptionally cruel toward trans people, which is a farce based on nothing except blind hatred and bigotry. I am happy - and even proud - to be trans, though, as I'm literally only living my life doing most of the same things that I have, just in a mental and physical frame of existence that actually makes getting up each day feel okay rather than trash. If that's considered a negative rather than a positive for someone, I reckon that I feel sorry for them.
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So, what is the motivation for coming back to this and potentially reviving this blog in some fashion? Well, it's twofold. One, I have started to finally again feel the impetus to write for the first time in a long time. I did briefly start a new blog when I was beginning my transition, but things were so hectic at that time that my focus simply wasn't there and navigating the vast amount of changes that were taking place at that time took most of my energy. However, after a pretty packed spring that included a move and surgery, things have finally settled down just enough for me to focus again.
Secondly, I mentioned the great support that I have received from the ALTTPR community, which is the first larger group of people that I've ever been a part of in which I have truly felt as though I fully fit. I have developed somewhat of a reputation of being the girl who knows way too much about sports and created a redeem on my Twitch channel for folks to ask me to talk about various athletes (mostly baseball). It's been rather well-received and, for me at least, a ton of fun, especially in terms of filling in some of dead air that can take place while playing rando seeds. I had wanted to make baseball cards for all of the redeems, but initially lost the list. However, I recently found it and set to making the cards, which have been sprinkled throughout this post and can be viewed in full on the sidebar. Given that I have neither a worthwhile image editing program nor much artistic aptitude, these are in the style of 1952 Topps since I can create them in MS Paint, LOL. I'm nonetheless pretty happy with these cards, had fun seeking out cool photos, and enjoyed getting to include my friends' avatars on the nameplate.
As for everything else, well, I guess that I'll figure it out as we go. While I have continued to read other folks's blogs over my hiatus, my level of engagement wasn't super high and I haven't done too much on the collecting front since the pandemic. I was making some progress toward consolidating toward players/sets that I want to keep and move others, but, um, my collection is presently several hours away, so that part will still be TBD. For now, though, I might just write what comes to mind and throw in images of the newest cards that join the array regardless of if they fit the theme of the piece. Something is better than nothing and I'm mostly just happy to be motivated enough to write, even if it's just a little. There's a lot of folks for whom am thankful for helping get me back to this place. 🧡
