18 years
25Today's a strange day. I should feel proud, even accomplished but I don't. I feel kind of hollow and empty and I don't know why.
I'm sure there's plenty of reasons as to why I feel this way but it's like… I started this channel when I was 17 and now I've been at it for more of my life than I haven't… that's just crazy.
If I really think about it, I guess the biggest reason is I don't feel like myself. So much has happened to me in the last couple of years alone, many things I've never told any of you about that it's gotten to the point where 18 years ago feels like another lifetime. A completely different version of me. Someone I probably wouldn't recognize if I saw him on the street even though we look pretty much the same and now I’m standing in his shoes, carrying all the weight he never could've imagined was coming.
It’s not just the time that passed, it’s everything that changed me along the way. Every loss, every disappointment, every time I had to keep going when I didn’t want to. The channel might’ve stayed the same in name but I didn’t. I’m not the kid who uploaded that review of the first Army men after I got inspired by armake21. I've changed and rebuilt so many times that it’s hard to even tell what’s real anymore.
And yet here I am, still on the channel and still holding on to all these memories… if there's one thing that's remained constant throughout my life, it's my YouTube channel and the long time fans that are still here, all of you guys that know who you are.
For those of you that listen to the full song, I want you to pay attention to the line “looking back in the rear view mirror, you know the view used to be much clearer” because it's true. It's one of the truest things I've ever heard in any song.
When you’re young, you see everything so clearly. You’ve got goals, plans, ideas of what life’s supposed to look like. You believe in things, in people, in yourself but the longer the road gets, the more that rear-view mirror fogs up. Life doesn't turn out the way you had planned it, things fall apart, people change and so do you and suddenly the past isn’t a crisp memory, it’s a haunting blur of what ifs and how did I get here
If there's one thing that I know for certain in life, it's at the more I live and the more I see, the less I actually know… but here I am, almost 20 years later, still uploading videos to the channel even if it's not regular… who knows where I'll go from here but still, here's 18 years I guess…