cave story and me (about december 20th 2004)

 today is my birthday. around five in the morning, after i woke up, a friend said we should play club penguin together. i felt like i was seven again. i remembered my tenth birthday, in which some classmates came to my house and we played club penguin. we watched scary videos and it was fun.

 at noon, i had lunch with my parents. my dad had told me before we left home that he was going to take me to the bank, to create an account to me, which he would deposit money. i remembered july 2020, during the best two weeks of my life, when i was at my dad's house in the city he lives in. he took me to see a place, a lot. he had bought this lot with the intention of building a little cottage, and my sister bought the lot right aside that. he said, "when i die, this lot will be yours. this will be my inheritance to you". anyone who doesn't know my dad would think this is amazing, which is exactly what i thought. my dad to this day has no idea how amazed i felt right then, given how i never express myself well to him. to anyone who doesn't know my dad, this was certain, but of course, i know him, and i knew this wouldn't be true. he gave up on that because it would be too expensive. my dad is not good with money, thankfully something i didn't get from him.

--

 i was born december 20th of 2004. this essay is about that date. two things happened that day: i left my mother's womb, and Daisuke Amaya released Cave Story to the world as freeware which was received to almost universal acclaim. needless to say, i was not received with universal acclaim. cave story shook the world and changed videogames forever, while i was underdeveloped and underwhelming. i was not on the oven for five years like my brother cave story. it was just nine months. those nine months weren't enough to give me average size. i was born small. i am still small. i am taller than Toby Fox, but that's not very hard.

 i have been saying for years that "i remember the day i was born", but recently i've came to find that this was wrong in a way that i was right. i only said it this way because it's my first memory ever, so i thought it was from december 20th of 2004. my memory is of my aunt giving me a bath, right after i saw the house i've lived in my entire life for the first time. i came to find that i only came home a few days after being born. funny thing is, i always knew that, i remember remembering this when i was little and i remember knowing that it was days after i was born, but i just started saying it was the same day, probably because it sounds cool.

 i do not, however, remember the first time i saw cave story. it's a game that i feel like i know ever since i was a kid, since i used to watch a lot of retro gaming channels on (brazilian) youtube. i can't even remember the first time i saw cave story as a teenager, but what made me finally play it was when i somehow found out about the game's release date. i had to know!! so i bought it on the 3ds eshop and played it the whole way through. it is one of the best games ever made.

 tim rogers wrote in his review of the game at action button dot com that the game is perfect, in many ways. he spent most of the review not talking about cave story, dilly-dallying his way around it, stalling, because there is absolutely nothing to say about it. it speaks for itself in a way most games can't. (that review, by the way, inspired me to write a review of Kid A that will be released some time in the future).

 my favorite thing about doukutsu monogatari is not the gameplay or the [monogatari], but actually the music. it's very fitting that the game released the day i was born has such striking compositions - from a man who didn't really know how to make music. it's one of the best soundtracks ever made. moonsong is one of the most beautiful songs ever made. balcony is one of the most melancholic songs ever made. cemetery is one of the most ingenious videogame songs ever made. the soundtrack is so good, that i knew that if i ever wrote a review of cave story i would focus on it, and how it enhances the narrative threefold. but this is not a review of cave story! this is a review of december 20th 2004. this is a review of my birthday.

 i am nineteen years of age. i have been depressed ever since i gained consciousness. when i finally met thoughts and logic, i started having existencial crisises and episodes of derealization. at some point, for countless reasons, i would begin to feel like i should have been born earlier. i do not want to be nineteen, i never wanted to be born in the 20th of december of two thousand and four. i'm not saying i was "born in the wrong generation", though maybe i am. it doesn't matter, because i grew up being fed with 90's nostalgia and media anyway, my childhood consoles were the SNES and the PSX, but at the same time i played club penguin and flash games. i didn't know any games from the 2000s, i wouldn't play a wii until 2015 and i wouldn't own one until 2023. all i knew were 90s games and what was on the internet. i eventually started watching let's play videos of games like Super Mario 3D World and Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon, but that was later down the line. i probably saw cave story somewhere in there, but i can't remember.

 remember when i said i was depressed? i can't really blame that on my father but i very well could. he has depression, but doesn't seek help. he is also a narcissist. those two things work against each other constantly, since his narcisism makes him unlikable, which makes him more alone, which deepens his depression. it could be genetic, given that most toddlers do not think about their deaths 24/7 and have a crippling fear of dying alone. if it isn't, then it's just a funny coincidence.

 2023 was one of the worst years of my life, which followed 2022, one of the worst years of my life. in 2022 i changed schools and had to go back to tenth grade. it was hell. the school's system was terrible and people there didn't like me. i had body dysmorphia and i was constantly paranoid and anxious. i played through cave story for the first time on my 3ds and it was amazing. at the end of the year i found Devi Mccallion's discography and that snowballed into me gaining confidence for a couple of months. not many good things happened in 2023. i released two albums and people liked them. i also finally got the Nintendo Wii that i always wanted (and no, i haven't downloaded cave story for it) and i travelled to Vitória - ES at the beggining of the year. i met my best friend in real life for the first time and he gave me a bjork cd (which has my favourite song of all time) alongside a 3ds cartridge (fantasy life). we talked for two hours and it was pretty good.

 i had two big relationships that hurt me immensely in different ways. i cut myself at the end of both. i almost killed myself in the second. i drank a lot of alcohol. i still miss the girl from recoil daily. i still love everyone i have ever loved and i still remember everyone i have ever met. i still have too many memories but not enough to call myself a hyperthymesiac. i am still half-baked. i am not the best version of myself. i am not cave story. i was not in the oven for five years; it was nine months, and i got out half-baked.

--

 i did nothing after lunch. i started writing this after i finished and now it's 8pm. i almost cried during lunch. i cried in the shower because of a song i love. before i had lunch, i replied to someone i follow on twitter for a while saying it is my birthday and if they followed me back i would be very happy. they did. they do not know how happy this made me. it was probably the best thing today.

 i did not create the bank account. it was too complicated. my dad laughed at me (sarcastically) saying it was complicated and clearly got hurt. it's really hard to say things to him and be honest because it's always what happens. he also made a unnecessary joke about Lula at the bank which made me uncomfortable because of how stupid and unnecessary it was.

 i played ninja gaiden, ninja gaiden ii, ninja gaiden iii, super paper mario and club penguin. only one of these is a childhood game of mine. i played with a friend and it felt like i was seven again. it felt like i came full circle from who i was before.

 i did not play cave story today. i played cave story a lot, i probably played more than i should, and i'll probably keep playing it again and again. i'm not sure if this is enough to justify putting it here but i don't care, i'll always think of it when it's my birthday.

 i tapped the day off with two pizzas. it was my aunt and cousin's birthday gift. i think food is fundamentally the worst possible gift because it's fleeting. but well, i adore food and they knew it, so i was grateful. 

 i am now nineteen years of age. i feel younger than the videogame that is also nineteen years of age, a videogame that changed its medium forever and feels like it's been here for longer. i feel like i've been here for longer too. though i didn't change anything. my music isn't as genuine, my looks aren't great, my gameplay is not rewarding, my story is convoluted and not worth knowing. i am not cave story. i wish i was, and i wish cave story was me, maybe that would be a better person. from these two events that happened in december 20th of 2004, just one of them will be remembered and celebrated for generations to come, and you know what? i'm happy for that. that game will always make my heart a little warmer.