Before I had the language for identity, I had instincts. I knew I wanted more color. More symbolism. More atmosphere. More meaning. I remember being the kind of kid who could turn an ordinary room into a whole private world just by looking at it long enough. Even then, I was building interior landscapes out of whatever was available.
I was growing up in the middle of ordinary life, but ordinary life never felt fully ordinary to me. Everything carried extra charge. Style mattered. Tone mattered. Music mattered. The internet mattered. Objects mattered. I was already collecting fragments of self long before I knew how to call that process becoming.
There was a younger version of me who asked too many questions, noticed too much, and carried feelings that did not know where to go. He was curious, impressionable, dramatic in the sincere way children can be, and always looking for clues about where he might belong. Sometimes that made me feel different in isolating ways. Sometimes it made me feel secretly powerful, like I was detecting hidden layers other people were missing.
Adult Joey looks back at that kid with a lot more tenderness than he used to. I do not see someone who was lost anymore. I see someone assembling himself out of pieces before he had any real blueprint. The aesthetics, the curiosity, the sensitivity, the need to build a bigger inner world, all of it was already there.
Looking back now, I realize the early version of me was not a draft to be erased. He was the first clear hint of the person I would eventually become, long before I knew what name to give him.