Final Fantasy XII

I remember the first time I saw the box. It was beautiful, and I dumbstruck with the possibilities it represented. It was Christmas and my friend's mother had been in her native UK, and had thoughtfully bought me some games she did not know anything about in a two-for-one deal, of which one was a white box with a striking blue-red gradient design of what I was sure must have demon. The box said "16+"; I wonder whether she knew the significance of this, and just did not care.

Later on, in a dark pyramid, the walls closing in, madly pushing buttons to get them to stop. Far from the bustle and rhythm of the city, we had travelled by foot through deserts and valleys, sometimes quickly straying into the gleaming underground caverns, sunlight somehow finding it's way down into the depths. The walls getting closer, my fellows suddenly dying, a number over their heads counting down.

Later yet, I'm fleeing from dangerous fauna through a forest. Here there were no stray paths, just an suspended walkway illuminated softly against the dark trees around, and then: Some sort of paradise, wide pavilions clinging to huge tree trunks, golden light filtering through the canopy high above, populated solely by tall bunny-eared women. They did not seem to like us, and my companions did not seem pleased to be there. I did not understand; I was barely 10 years old, and had already found heaven.

Looking back, I remember the places I've been and the peoples I've seen, but individual names and faces has faded. Even now I could come back as a tour-guide: This is the plaza where the king once held an parade; this is the sewers through which we made a grand heist at the palace. Here's the flying islands where they mine floating stones, and there's the abandoned oil rigs of the western deserts where bugmen thrive, very scenic, melancholic, but be careful when the elementals are out, they don't like magic.

How I got anywhere is a mystery. The language of the natives was one I wouldn't learn until a few years later, translated from a different one, which I wouldn't start learning until 15 years later. Buttons of all kinds, intricately, thoughtfully laid out, but completely incomprehensible.

A tear on my cheek. These memories of digital spaces are precious, but I had never really considered it. I had thought them "fake memories"; their source digital somehow invalidating their importance to and influence on my life. Without these memories I might not have revisited these lands of Ivalice years later and gotten absorbed once again; I might not have become interested in the nearby lands of Midgard, Alexandria or Eorzea. They laid the foundations for further memories and stronger friendships.

Just as my memories of holidays with my my girlfriend, or one of my late grandmother on a hot summer day making ice cream, or even an awkward memory of a pre-puberty promise of marriage to girl that is now happily married to somebody else, they sit in my mind, without a need to justify themselves, these ghosts of a past me. They anchor me as I move ever further away from the little boy I once was. I should cherish them all, however awkward, however digital.