about nostalgia...

A couple of months ago, I finally decided to update the homebrew on my old 3DS. I plugged in the charger, waited for the battery to charge just a bit, and—me, always being so impatient—booted it up.

"HOME" by Resonance immediately started playing, and a wave of nostalgia hit me. This 3DS was the first console I bought with my own money (mind you, that money should've gone toward my studies—but hey, we're young and still can't fully grasp the severity of adulthood). As soon as I received it, I started looking for ways to install homebrew on it.

Let's be real: if we all had the choice between paying for Nintendo games or getting them for free, I'd personally choose the latter. Not out of some vendetta against Nintendo (though I do have a bit of a love-hate relationship with them—damn you, Nintendo), but simply because I'd rather spend my money elsewhere.

The 3DS homebrew scene is so much fun—games, apps, themes, emulators. You could even watch YouTube or read manga on it. It's still a cool piece of hardware with a solid catalog. Honestly, it didn't even need the 3D gimmick—but whatever, to each their own. I personally never used it. I didn't want the headaches.

So, young me starts installing everything I could. The custom themes community is alive and still releases themes for the 3DS to this day! Since I love customizing everything I own, it was only natural that I started collecting some. Zelda, Animal Crossing, Hello Kitty, stupid internet memes... until I came across a "vaporwave" theme. Some themes had custom background music, and this one had "HOME" by Resonance.

Huh, I thought. I love this song!

So I clicked download and installed it. Man, I still remember the exact colors and background for that theme—even almost a decade later. Like a frame from a film you never forget. A core memory. Late summer nights, fan working overtime, playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf under the sheets. It might seem inconsequential—like a really stupid thing to remember—but I still do, to this day.

That brings us back to a couple of months ago. I really like having everything up to date, so updating my 3DS was only a matter of time. Only this time, I had to do a hard reset. But before that, a thought crossed my mind:

"This will erase my themes too. What if I lose THE theme?"

I didn't have much time to dwell on it. I mostly go through life doing things first and thinking later. So I just went ahead and deleted everything for a clean install.

Horror.

I couldn't find the theme. No matter how much I searched, it just wasn't there. Only a few themes with HOME as the BGM showed up, and none of them were the one. At that point, I started feeling really sad—like I had just lost a part of myself. Mind you, it's just a 3DS custom theme. But to me, it represented some happy memories from my teenage years.

"But what if I could start again? What if I just install some of these themes and start making memories again?"

So I did. And even though it felt like attending my own self-made funeral—burying a stupid digital thing—I felt okay. Maybe nostalgia is a dangerous thing if left unchecked. Maybe looking back to the past for happiness, while the future remains unwritten, is something we all need to be cautious about.

Things can be okay—if we let ourselves move on.

about art...

Lately I've been thinking about art. After all I am an artist, so fork found in the kitchen.

The optimist in me doesn't want to call it what it might look like: a downward spiral. But I've been somewhat of spiralling these past months thinking about life and who I am as a person, at my core.

Art always comes at the forefront, I've been drawing since I was a child. I remember my mom drawing me in my pajamas one morning, when I was only 5 years old. I was so fascinated by that act, of seeing me on paper, that I still remember that moment 21 years later.

My mom always said that the women in our family tended to be more on the creative side, but I didn't need my mom to tell me that. I've always felt that I was meant to do this. Like some divine calling, as goofy as it sounds. I've never been more certain of something in my life. And the moment I doubted that fact, I quickly realized how stupid I was for thinking otherwise.

This year marks my 10 year anniversary of me jumping into the world of digital art, and 5 years of me making this my main stream of income. I've had to face many challenges in my career, as well as enjoy so so many cool moments like meeting some of my biggest inspirations, interacting with other artists and even work on two videogames! (which I am very very proud of).

And although I should be happy about it (which a part of me is happy about it, cause damn) another part of me is feeling conflicted cause the way I used to interact with art will never be the same anymore.

Art for me has and will always be a form of self expression. But it also used to be a way to cope with the world and whatever was happening in life at the moment. I've spent countless hours sitting in front of my pc just drawing whatever I wanted to draw (sometimes influenced by what was working at the moment, this is my job after all) and working on my social media presence.

Now, the years have given me the much needed wisdom to clearly see that I was on a path of self destruction in terms of taking care of myself physically and mentally. So, as soon as I moved out I started to restrict myself on how I interacted with social media (stopped checking every 3 minutes for retweets or comments everytime I uploaded a new piece) and started going to the gym! I still struggle with these things, but I still try. And that's enough for me!

I've lost the fuel to continue this whole ass rant but what I wanted to get at is that: it is impossible for me to keep interacting with art like I used to do when I was in a more darker place mentally. The times of pumping out 10 drawings a month are now over. And it might be over in more ways than that, but those questions I'll leave them to the me in the future!

I want to leave this text with a happy conclusion, since there's enough misery for now. Even when everything seems alien to you, like you're shedding skin and you don't recognize yourself in the mirror, that doesn't mean that the one looking back at you isn't you. Despite everything, it's still you. And you can still go on and create art, even though things might have forever changed. And art is a part of my soul, and I am not willing to capitalize my soul.

I feel kind of stupid writing all of this. But I feel better after putting to text how this makes me feel. This is also an explanation to people who have been fans for years.