If you know me, you know that I love all forms of storytelling. When Charlie was born, I lost touch with a lot of my creative outlets. I love Charlie to death, and he’s the center of my universe, but adjusting to my new parenting lifestyle put me into survival mode for a while. Now, two years in, I’m starting to rediscover my old loves. This is exciting, but it also means that I’m constantly pulled in several different directions all at once just to scratch those itches. I can’t quite decide if this is fortunate or unfortunate, but I’ve got plenty of wonderful things at the moment that are soaking up my free time. 

Video games are first. Not only am I playing catch-up on all of the titles that were released in 2021, in the span of late January through February at least four more amazing video games are releasing. Every single one of these has the potential to be one of the year’s top-ten games, if not the game of the year itself. Currently I am cycling between Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Dying Light 2. This Pokemon game is the one that I, as a fan of Pokemon, have been begging for for at least two decades. The fact that it is on the portable Nintendo Switch makes for a dangerous combination. Then, Dying Light 2 is the zombie parkour sequel that I’ve been waiting for since the first one released in 2015, and I’m having a great time with it. Horizon: Forbidden West drops on February 18th, with Elden Ring hot on its heels February 28th. It’s a safe bet that all of these games are award contenders, and we’re not even two months into the year. 

Books are second. I promised myself I would read at least 30 books this year, so of course I started off with the thousand-page fantasy novels. I started The Stormlight Archive series at the beginning of the year. After making short work of the first book, Way of Kings, I’m now about half way through the second book, Words of Radiance. I highly recommend this series! I haven’t read a book since 2019, and rediscovering my attention span for books has already been a huge win in 2022. 

Movies are third. I noticed from 2020-2021 I didn’t watch a single movie that wasn’t Disney or Harry Potter. Unless you count Godzilla vs. Kong, but that isn’t exactly a movie of substance. I’ve talked with many people about starting a movie watching club, but have never backed it up with action. Until this year. Some friends and I are going through IMDB’s top 250 movies of all time list week-by-week. So far we’ve watched Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather Part 1 and 2, and Batman Begins. The rule is if a sequel is on the list we have to watch the first film first. The Dark Knight is next. I’ve made it a point to have no distractions while watching a film. That means no phone, no laptop, no Switch, or anything. It’s just me and the film. There’s some exciting films ahead of me on the list and I can’t wait! 

My big promise to myself in 2022 is to have more intention in my life. I spent a lot of down time for the past year or two finding ways to numb my brain. Being a new parent takes a lot of your brain power, and I had no energy to spend on challenging mediums of media. Instead of watching films or shows with exciting and challenging ideas, I would just watch mindless Youtube videos before falling asleep. I would try to read books, but if I wasn’t hooked in the first paragraph I wouldn’t even bother. It was the same with video games as well. Why bother with a slower story-based game when I could just jump into a 5-minute RC car soccer (Rocket League) game without any challenge to my concentration. 

I’m sure you might be reading this and find it silly to place so much stock in things like video games and movies, but this is a big part of who I am. This past month has felt like a big reawakening for me, and it’s good to be back.