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elbamboozler92 · 4 years

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My very first blog

My name is Jarad Blackford, and I have been writing since I was in the third grade. With my big imagination it allowed me to focus on something that I enjoyed. I made short stories, joined journalism in the eleventh grade, and currently going to college to get my degree. I covered Lorain County football for a year for the Morning Journal in twenty-nine-teen, and even though I was not the best, the writing was enjoyable. Anyhow, why am I doing this? Well, I have a deep passion for my friends, family, sports, and gaming. I am going to cover memories that I have over the years with my friends. Why kind of memories? I'm going to cover memories in gaming history, and it is not just limited to video games. Board games, card games, and competitive moments in sports as well. There are good moments, bad ones too, times that I have made people cry from laughter, and even the events that made me proud. Now, who joined me on these adventures? Well, there are family members like grandmothers, grandfathers, and even great aunts. Friends from High School to online friends in Canada! With that, I am going to tell you a little bit about myself.

Growing up with a great mentor and a fantastic rival

I was introduced to games when I was a little boy, and we played the child board and card games like, Sorry, War, Trouble, and Go Fish, but we grew with a Dad who also played a lot of video games. He was a big fan of Doom, Warcraft, and several others like it. When he would play, my brother and I was right on his hip observed him until we were old enough to play. My first memory outside of playing Mario and Duck Hunt was Doom in a death match against my Father. The first time he shot and killed me, I ran away from the computer because it scared me, and I started to cry ( He did the same thing to my brother, so I guess it was an initiation for us). He was the kind of parent that would not go easy on either of us because he wanted us to learn. Once we were able to play games together (all three of us), our Dad would convince me to team up against my brother, and I always agreed to it even though the man did not need the help. It created this rivalry with my brother, and because of this, it is still the mindset to beat my brother or even make sure he does not win. My Father is now sixty-one years old and still plays Call of Duty, Borderlands, or any games he can get his hands on. Even though he has had seven wrist surgeries, he still holds his own, gains our respect. As we got older, our Dad did not play as much as he used to, so a brotherly rivalry kind of took off. It was never malicious or with anger, young kids now adults, just competing against one another in every aspect from gaming to sports, but it is not like we never teamed up because we did that multiple times, and it is just equally as fun.

Life before, during and after the pandemic.

Before the pandemic, I stopped playing video-games, and always on the run. For four years, I honed, crafted, and practiced the sport to the best of my abilities. Of course, my brother and sister-law played the sport. The passion for this sport allowed me to get my body into a much better shape. I dropped my weight from one hundred and eighty pounds to one hundred forty, and that got me in the best physique of my life because I wanted to compete and improve my game, and that is what I did. I am also going to share these times too, but not just volleyball. We had turkey bowls, games of twenty-one, softball, dodge-ball, and kick-ball even. Yes, kickball!

When everything shutdown, social activities were out of the window, I locked myself in the house. I was afraid to give any of my friends or family the virus if I caught it (I have not), but the idea of it ate away at me. To see my friends, I did a lot of video chatting, and that was nice, but as time passed, it got boring. I wanted to be there with my friends, but at the same time, I wanted to be safe. When I returned to work after two months of being at home, I was nervous about the ailment, and there would be changes in the workplaces. Fast forward five months, something happened to me, my heart began racing at work, and I started having panic attacks. I still have them as I type this out, and I have moments where I feel like my old self but have those moments where I do not want to do anything. As I am writing this now is I have a deep passion and love for writing, but I never knew what or where to start. My brother approached me one night over at his house and asked me why I have not started blogging during my off time. I told him I have no idea where I would start or what I would even write. He later sent me this app for my phone, and I later pieced this together. I love to write, and the reason why I am writing these moments is it reminds me of a time when everything was normal a better time. I continue to write and remember. I find myself laughing and having fun doing this, and that makes me feel more like myself. My thinking is I continue to remember these simpler times I could get back to being myself again. I honestly missed being myself, and writing brings me great joy. I hope that these memories that I share and write are enjoyable. I want to say thank you for making it this far, and I know I have a ton of work to do still and hopefully create a schedule to do this. Thank you again!

Sincerely,

Jarad Blackford

Follow my blog at https://8bitegaming.wordpress.com/

#gaming #xbox one #sports #family #video games #card games #board games #volleyball #mental health

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