Beginning

I am an avid believer that if you just give anything new two weeks, it will seem more familiar and even, possibly, comfortable after that amount of time.

But in the beginning, this game actually scared me.

Literally, heart racing, and brain shutting down – scared.

As soon as I had an account, my middle son wanted to “go out” to play to locations where it was better to play than our house (our house gets some Pokemon because it is close to a “stop,” but not as much as the center of our town, for example).

I would view the screen, try to stay calm, but then a Pokemon would appear and I would actually feel scared. Or inadequate.

I would then hand my phone over to Kieran for him to play my game.

Sure, I learned by watching him, but he was sometimes frustrated because he was playing his own game.

I think he was also sometimes proud because he was an expert in this new thing to me and could teach me. With his brother, they usually “I knowed” each other, instead of teaching each other, even though Kieran played way more than Liam and was a higher level.

I did most of my practicing of the game at home when I could focus on just one aspect of the game – catching Pokemon. I could do this by myself and gain confidence for the next time we “went out.”

It looks like this:

This is Pikachu. He is one of the most recognizable characters in the game and there was a movie a year or so ago with his character. He is often on kids’ backpacks or t-shirts.

He doesn’t always wear a party hat – that’s for the new year.

Pokemon jump and move around. The ball is harder to “throw” than it seems.

So that was what I first focused on – playing slowly at home, and then watching and learning when I was out. And listening to my mentor.

Sounds like how I approached a lot of other new things in my life.