1. The Generation Of Broken Children

08/14/25 - by Will from 8 Bit Garden

Most times when a baby cries, someone comes rushing. Picking her up and swaddling her into their arms, holding her until she soothes back to sleep. Most babies are fed when they're hungry. They get help when needed, and aren't afraid to ask for it when they grow older. Most babies have some form of parent.

I say 'most' because, well, most of us know that not all children get this treatment.

'Most' could even be considered a generous term. I haven't met many people who like the ones who raised them. We're the Generation of Broken Children. Or as Leanna Firestone would say, 'Least Favorite Only Child" (even if you have siblings).

It's strange. As a military brat I moved all over and hated every moment of it. It's a small, yet significant, part of why my childhood was so miserable— among other more egregious things, to say the least. Yet even with this hatred of digging myself deeper in the ground every time only to be yanked out moment and moment again, I have a festering wanderlust. The urge to get into an RV and leave everything behind. The urge to travel, and learn, and grow.

Maybe all I want is to run away. Or maybe all I want is control.

My name is Will from 8 Bit Garden, and welcome to today's post. I've always seen myself as a very introspective person. I spend a lot of my time walking around, doing nothing but listening to music and thinking. This hurts me often. I'm a righteous overthinker and a sinning impulse machine at one. I let my brain get twisted and misconstrued until I don't know who to trust or where to go when in reality, nothing changed.

Imagine my surprise when everyone was so confused I was upset. Imagine your fiance leaves the room laughing for a glass of water, then twenty seconds later something clatters and a furacious scream sounds through the house. You run to him, but all that happened was he knocked a glass over and spilled some water. Imagine your confusion, but more importantly, imagine your confusion growing when they don't have answers, either. Why did it strike such a coord? You could say 'likely this,' or 'maybe that' but we don't have answers. It just did.

And I guess that's the thing about radical acceptance (if you don't know, radical acceptance is a technique used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, a common treatment for BPD which we as a system have a severe case of). It's radical for a reason. It's putting your foot down and saying, 'I will accept this, even if it kills me, because I cannot let it kill me."

Isn't that all the Generation of Broken Children want? To not die? To live some form of life greater than death? Whether we go to Heaven or Hell, or we poof, or we reincarnate, or whatever, the life we're certain we do have needs to not be taken for granted. Yet you're not alone if you feel like that's all you do.

I often find myself abruptly coming into focus. The plushies on the shelves. The stories I've written that make me proud. The mug collection. The watched TV shows. The songs sung and the meals eaten. I was mad when gratitude worked for the first time. Angry that something so simple, like breathing, could do so much. Could remind me of so much. It didn't fix anything, but it forced me to admit I didn't have nothing.

When I was little, my dad was deployed in the Marine Corps. He never told us when he was coming home—only our mother, so he could surprise us. I remember, five or six years old, running down the stairs screaming that daddy was finally home. I jumped into his arms. I could smell the sweat on his camis. We watched movies even though it was late, and I wanted him to think I had fallen asleep in his arms. I wanted to feel him kiss my forehead and stroke my hair. But I fell asleep for real by mistake, and when I woke up the next morning, he was gone again. Only a sweaty shirt in his place.

He always left me one. Gross to some people, but it smelled like him and I wore it to bed. We don't talk anymore. He fell asleep, and he refuses to wake up. When he does, I'll already be gone.

My name is Will from 8 Bit Garden. I don't have an RV, or parents to coddle me when I cry, or much control at all.

But despite all that anarchy, I am still here. The plushies and the mug collection, they make up who I am— and although it may be gone now, so does that old sweaty shirt.