Well here I am, in my 28th year of life and my 23rd year of playing Pokémon, but I haven't really played much Pokémon since my 2DS died almost 2 years ago now, other than a little bit in my Gen 4 and 5 games on my semi-functional DS Lite.
(Bit hard to try for a 200 win streak at Battle Tower when your system could shut off at any moment though, due to the hinge that connects the two halves of it being damaged on the right hand side.)

When I first came here to Paint back in 2019, Pokémon was pretty much the only game I was playing at the time, not because I am obsessed with Pokémon (although I most certainly am), but because every game system here other than my DS Lite and my 2DS was inaccessible and/or broken at that time, which (combined with a lack of DS and 3DS games that weren't Pokémon here) literally meant the only things that I could play were my various handheld Pokémon game and my copy of MySims Racing for the DS, and when my 2DS broke in 2020 it limited my options even more.
(And things have more or less stayed that way ever since then.)

Given how playing video games was always one of the only things that I was ever actually allowed to do in life for enjoyment, it should come as a surprise to nobody here that I have been trying to fill the void created in my life by my newfound inability to play video games by spending more time online here, and while this has actually been the case since I first got here in 2019 to a certain degree, my 2DS breaking in 2020 only made me want to spend time doing things online here even more, while simultaneously making it much harder for me to do so.
(Thank God my dad lets me use his tablet to get online now.)

It is not an exaggeration to say that I spend almost all of my time offline thinking about what I am going to do the next time that I am online, and that the time that I spend here, on SocialCu.be, on Discord, and on Pokémon Showdown are the only things that I look forward to each day.

The Gen 9 Pokémon games Scarlet and Violet Versions (which look REALLY cool BTW) have already been announced, and despite the fact that I actually had the latest Pokémon games when I first came here back in April of 2019 (by which I mean Pokémon Ultra Moon Version), I am soon going to be not 1, but 2 generations behind many of my fellow Pokémon fans here, and since Pokémon is pretty much the only thing that I've been able to play for the past few years, I truly do feel left out of everything most of the time, even more than I did back in 2019.
(And I didn't even mention my mother dying 2 months ago yet. My life SUCKS!)

Anyway, now that I got all of that negative stuff out of my system, let me try to make some Lemonade out of all of these sour Berries that life has been giving me lately…
(Notice how the Pokémon Center Café baristas in the Alola games say that Lemonade is made out of Berries rather than lemons? What's up with that, lol?)

While it is hasn't exactly turned out like I had hoped it would, I have been able to do some battles (including against some of my friends from here on Paint) on Pokémon Showdown recently, and it turns out that I'm actually pretty good at VGC 2022, NatDex AG, and even Gen 8 OU Single battles after all, despite having no prior experience with any of the Gen 8 stuff, and having gone well over a year without playing anything newer than Gen 5.
(Which made me feel a lot better about myself, since Pokémon has always been one of the few things that I actually believed that I was good at.)

Additionally, I now have a far better understanding of Smogon's tiering system than I once did, and while I still disagree with a lot of it (and am still working on my own alternative tiering system) I now feel comfortable enough with it that I'd be able to come up with a team for an OU Single or Double battle in any gen, without too much difficulty adjusting to their once unfamiliar battle formats.
(Which is more than I could've said last year.)

And while I am still working on it, I believe that I have decided on the ruleset for that (long overdue) Pokémon tournament that I had announced back in 2019, and I plan on trying to hold it sometime this or next month, depending on what timing works best for both y'all and myself.
(See this blog for the latest information on it.)

Also, although I cannot play my more modern Pokémon games ATM, I can still write about them, and while it would be impossible for me to write as many Pokémon blogs as I did back in 2019 or 2020, I have begun to (slowly) start writing them again, and plan to release plenty more of them in the near future.
(I am prioritizing quality over quantity, though.)

Life is very hard for me RN, and not being able to play most of my favorite video games (Pokémon or otherwise) makes it that much worse for me, but I still remain optimistic that I will be able to see all of my Gen 6 and Gen 7 Pokémon again someday, and until I do, I can still try to share my 23 years of knowledge, experience, and (most important of all) fun with y'all, and that is exactly what I plan to do, to the best of my abilities.
(And if you have a copy of Ω Ruby or α Sapphire and haven't already, please check out my Super Secret Base in Ω Ruby Version, by scanning the QR code below.)