If you were anything like me growing up as a kid, you would know what it was like being the kid that HATED Pokémon, and I mean "hated" underlined, in bold, and italicized. But, let's be real here, we only hated Pokémon because we couldn't understand it so we pretended to be "too cool" for it. Now don't get me wrong, I had seen a couple seconds of an episode here and there throughout my lifetime but because I had trained my stubborn mind that it had to hate the show, it had to remain like that. So I grew up, made fun of the nerds at school who knew every Pokémon name and all of the stats that went with them, and even laughed at the kid who had the Pokéball lunchbox in middle school. (shout out to you though homie I wish I had that lunchbox now)

Then, about a week ago, Pokémon Go hit the market. Hard. I remember social media before Pokémon Go hit the app store, it was quiet. Nobody talked about it, and nobody really even knew it was coming out, at least not my social group. So when the app was finally released in the United States after a day or so lag, my feed literally blew up. People were freaking out. Pokémon had always been popular growing up but the release of the new Pokémon Go sparked something in everyone's hearts and brought their childhoods back to life. People all over my timelines were socializing about catching Pokémon in places all over town. It became very intriguing after pictures from the game began appearing on my dash. I finally gave in somewhere around 3am and created my character. I'll admit, the first couple hours messing around with the game wasn't as fun as I had hoped, in fact, I was bored out of my mind. That's when I realized of course that "Pokémon Go" literally meant "get off your butt and work for these pocket monsters you lazy bum". So I left the house to figure out just what this game was all about.

Now, picture this; a young adult girl in an extremely oversized pug nightgown, splattered in bleach and burn holes, walking around a dark neighborhood with nappy wet hair roughly toppled on top of her head, standing in front of a strangers house screaming with excitement about catching a DoDuo at 5 in the morning. Or, the same girl prancing around the Walmart parking lot at midnight attempting to capture her hundredth Rattata or struggling to capture a Venomoth that is entirely too stubborn. Like me.

Needless to say, I'm hooked. I don't know if its that actual act of catching Pokémon in my everyday life surroundings, or the fact that I'm actually good at something for once that makes this game so exciting for me. (Hint: if you ever take a slow leisurely stroll through your neighborhood in your car, I can guarantee you'll find several Pokémon to catch.) This game though, has become seemingly detrimental to my health. It's driving me crazy. The servers seem to crash almost 24/7 which can be really annoying after you've walked two blocks underground to find a rare Pokémon but the server won't boot up. Or when you've taken twenty minutes too long on your break at work so you could drive to a park where a gym is and battle someone.

So here's my personal apology to all of the nerds out there who rocked the Pokémon trainer hat and carried around a backpack full of Pokéballs to play with at recess. I'm really sorry I made fun of you. I'm a complete hypocrite now that I can't even seem to shut off the app long enough to text my mom back or get ready for work. Pokémon is seriously the coolest thing since sliced bread honestly. I hope all of you nerds are still out there geeking out over the Eevee evolution or even Exeggcutes evolution because quite honestly, same. Y'all are the real troops for surviving that long.

I hope you catch the rarest of Pokémon in your endeavors.

I'm now on season 6 of Pokémon and I don't remember the last time I slept honestly.

You should be doing the same.