Volume 2, Entry 23: Evolvable
Alyiah’s book Faeblood Unbroken is now available in paperback! If you were waiting for the print edition, you can purchase it now here! (This is now the correct link.)
In my efforts to be organized and productive this summer, I started a note in my phone with a list of Pokémon that have attainable evolutions in Pokémon Go. Just yesterday, I sprinted to Kunsting to catch my first Sewaddle; that silly little duck-leaf bug heads off my list. There are only four on there—with a fifth currently my Buddy in pursuit of my first Haxorus—but just writing down the names means I can smoothly transition to the next one when Fraxure is ready to evolve.
I titled that note “Evolvable” but I didn’t know until then that “evolvable” was a word. It makes sense that it would be—nothing says “able to incrementally change and progress” like “evolvable”—but many things make perfect sense but are not things. There was a surprising excitement when no red squiggly line appeared underneath it.
Pokémon, though, actually obscures the word quite a bit. While the broad stroke idea of Pokémon evolving is accurate—given time, animals develop and change—the execution is decidedly imperfect: Pokémon “evolve” not gradually over long periods of time but in discrete chunks at established plateaus. That Fraxure grew out of an Axew with 25 candies; he will become a Haxorus when I scrounge up 100 more.
This isn’t evolution so much as maturation; Pokémon undergo puberty one or two times as they become their final forms. (I can understand avoiding that nomenclature, though.) Some mature when exposed to certain materials—various stones, a particular location, spending time with their trainer—in a nod to nurture playing a role in development, while others simply grow at established levels as nature dictates.
(If it isn’t clear, the cleverness and execution of all this still endlessly fascinate and entertain me.)
The evolution of a digital Axew I haven’t even bothered to name on Pokémon Go doesn’t resonate that much, though—and that’s okay because its predictable maturation and puberty tiering feel somewhat rote. I know that, two weeks from now, my walking will result in sufficient Axew candy to transform that Fraxure into a Haxorus. There’s no real sense of wonder in it; Pokémon Go is a game of patience and grinding. I did well on Sword and Shield to look up nothing so that final forms and events remained mysteries, but there’s no mystery here: I’ve known Axew’s pubescent destiny since I was in college. I’m just waiting for the day on which I can check the box that I added Haxorus to my Pokédex and move on to Sewaddle or Krokorok.
Real life, though, isn’t quite as predictable. There are certainly important stages that mark endings—graduations and birthdays, for instance—but a person’s progression forward suits the word “evolvable” far better than Axew, Sewaddle, or the Galarian Slowpoke I raided for yesterday. The evolutions happen much more quickly and non-generational, but the accumulation of time, experience, and interaction slowly entwine with who we are to form better-adapted versions of ourselves.
Recognizing that new version often feels like a surprise. Unlike the rigid shifts between, say, a Charmander, a Chameleon, and a Charizard, our growth is subtle. Take a photo every day and, to our eyes and minds, nothing noticeable changes in the shots outside of haircuts and injuries, but yet, when strung together, real change can be visible between the two endpoints of the experiment.
Physical change doesn’t occur in a vacuum though—it calls shotgun while the emotional parts of us drive that growth as well. I run into this thought all the time when thinking back to coaching baseball or my first few years of teaching. I remember stupid statements and glaring gaffes and start to beat myself up for the embarrassing errors only to realize that, in that moment, I was still me still doing what I thought was best.
But I was a different me. Emotionally, I was an Axew; nowadays, I have become a Fraxure. I’m not sure when precisely I ate those Steele candies or when I triggered the flashing lights that signaled evolution but there’s no doubt that I am different than I was before.
Awareness of this difference between me from the past two decades and me isn’t new; I constantly get catapulted back into awful memories of mistakes and errors from early iterations of life. What has been unique, though, is having the space to reflect about this change and really regard it. There was an impossible amount to do keeping up with school in COVIDland but there was new room to ponder with fewer people always in my ear.
I bring this up because, Axew and Fraxure aside, I noticed and felt that personal evolution these past few weeks as I prepared for the end-of-year dinner (sadly presented dinnerless for the second year in a row). This year marked its sixth year and I couldn’t help but marvel at the changes it has undergone. The original 2016 edition invited twelve people, nine of whom attended. The concept was loosely conceived around gratitude, but I had no firm plans for expressing that sentiment. There was food but everything else that followed was borderline serendipity. I worried about honoring the experience of that year and how those twelve had carried me through being hopelessly miserable for most of it and tearily flew by the seat of my pants all the way through.
This year, though, I put a plan in place from the beginning. Instead of looking back at the end and trying to remember moments where people impacted me, I recorded their names throughout the year, adding to my master list whenever something significant struck me. I wrote letters again but far more substantial letters—95 pages across the 41 I composed—and I didn’t panic about presenting my gratitude to each of them. I knew what to say because I’d been aware of their impact on me for months at least (if not far longer).
Most interesting to me was my lack of tears. A culminating event like this marks an ending: as I said at last year’s event, I am aware that this “dinner” is the global maximum closeness I will have with most of those in attendance. There are individuals I haven’t heard from since dinners long past—not many, but a few—and even at that first haphazardly organized one there is someone I’ve fallen almost completely out of touch with. I know this; I recognize the stakes of saying the right words to carry forward with people I might never see again for the rest of their lives. Failing will curse me to forever relive my miscommunication.
So why the dry face? Why did I swallow down the lump in my throat during so many letters and comfortably proceed through sharing all of the life-affirming and life-bettering connection with all of these people who collectively imbued a year of isolation with positivity and value?
Because I’ve evolved. I’m not stashing away my gratitude or admiration for people for the end of the year; I’m more often telling them in the moment when it happens such that the letter merely reflect on moments and conversations and experiences that they already knew mattered to me. I’m not packing away all of my emotion all the time, pretending it isn’t there and only unleashing it on special occasions; I’m being authentic, and I’m being far more honest with people throughout the year. I’m no longer looking back to decode how it was that other people helped pull me through sadness and malaise and wanting to not wake up; I’m marking those moments as they happen, recording their names and writing newsletters and even stealing ten minutes of class time when we had already lost so much of it to acknowledge the impact of people. I’m modeling healthy behavior for others and showing them how to strengthen connections.
And I’m doing all of it without forfeiting the awareness that these moments mark endings. BoJack Horseman first put it to words in early 2020 but, after a eighteen months of trying to absorb that message, I finally do. Some good things aren’t meant to last forever. They don’t have to be eternal for them to matter; the people don’t have to be around until the day I die to have left an enduring mark on my heart.
I hope that many of them do, but it’s okay if they don’t. It was all good while it lasted. I have changed for the better because of them.
Ahem: I have evolved.
I’m glad.
I thought about turning on a movie—In the Heights is on HBO Max this month and I rented the Nicolas Cage amusement park horror flick—but I ended up lost in revisions tonight. In addition, my dinner was, outside the applesauce, completely made by me: my first omelette (hot link and cheese), lemon poppyseed muffins, and my first batch of Scotcheroos for dessert. I’m feeling awfully proud, even though these aren’t exactly intricate dishes here. This is the good part of the summer: there’s time to try something and potentially fail.
