My Pokémon Journey [Dedication To Celebrating 20 Years!]

How Pokémon Has Affected Me

My Walk With Pokémon

It began when the Pokémon anime first aired in America. Everyone just called it a cartoon because no one really knew the difference between the silly cartoons that played on Cartoon Network, and the more refined anime from Japan.

I still remember watching those early episodes and falling in love with the world it presented. It became my favorite cartoon, and I became a huge fan of the Pokémon world. So much so that as I grew older my one wish was that Pokémon could become real.

It became my escape from life. As I grew up with the show, it heavily affected my way of life and personality. It made me open to creativity. The first thing I started to draw was Pokémon. The first thing I started to imagine and want to write was Pokémon. The first thing I ever played or started a collection of was Pokémon.

It helped that my close family was so supportive of my love for all things Pokémon. Some of my most fondest memories is trying to imitate the cries the Pokémon made from the show and how it got my mom to laugh when I kept doing Horsea's cry. How I started to get better and better at drawing Pokémon, and my mom acknowledged it and even drew some alongside me and how cool my mom was to me growing up (and still is).

I remember very fond memories of me, my mom, and grandma playing the Nintendo64 together. Playing Pokémon Stadium 1 & 2, Pokémon Snap, Hey You, Pikachu!, and even Smash Bros. where I was always Pikachu and my grandma always played as Kirby. My mom always loved playing the fun mini games the Stadium games had to offer, and it was always so fun to play games with family.

Even the Pokémon themed board games were fun! I still have Monopoly, Yahtzee, and the original Pokémon board game of the Kanto region. It's so old that the box is falling apart, but it's still a really fun game of gotta catch'em all!

If the N64 has fond memories with family pegged to it, then the Gamecube is the console that helped me escape during my preteen and teen years of trying to understand myself. The games presented helped me unwind and take my mind off the troubles and anxiety I faced. I could be me in my own world of Pokémon

When I was 10, I had the assured notion that it was time for me to start my Pokémon adventure just as Ash did. I love being a kid and escaping into my own little world, I preferred living in my own fantasies rather than reality. I remember even leaving the backyard that I was never suppose to leave, and I made it past a few houses, backpack on and all, before chickening out and going back home.

I grew up in a time that Pokémon was so alive and was the thing that all the kids loved in school. In elementary, me and my classmates would all play as Pokémon on the playground - running around as a certain favorite one. I remember one girl always played as Vulpix, and my best friend at the time liked to play as Squirtle. I'm not sure which one I played as the most, because it was so long ago, but I know I liked to switch it up.

I was THE Pokémon nerd of school. For a long while I was proud of it... I would have Pokémon-themed birthday parties with full on Pokémon cake and ice cream (the Pikachu pops were so amazing, I want them back!). I would have most of my classmates over for it and we would watch Pokémon together, it was the LIFE. Then, of course, years passed and with each passing year it seemed everyone left me behind. Fewer and fewer classmates came to my birthday parties anymore, and I became something made fun of for still liking 'a little kid's show.' And because of this, I became shut-off from the world.

I felt weird and different, like I didn't belong in this reality. I couldn't feel accepted; it was only at home or in my fantasy world that I felt comfortable any more. I had to lie and act like I was over it when classmates asked if I was still into Pokémon - all of them so eager to pick at anyone or anything different. I just wanted to blend in and be left alone so I became quieter, not as passionate as I was when I was a kid.