REINESSA

Navigating creativity, identity, and career when you refuse to pick just one thing

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately: about passion, focus, and what we really want from life and work. This piece came out in one big breath, but it’s been five years in the making. It’s for anyone feeling scattered, boxed in, or wondering if they’re allowed to just… be a person.

What do we want? What drives us?
I was asked that earlier today, and my brain started dumping idea after idea. I want to create. I want to help people. I want to keep brushing elbows with the music industry. I want to be a part of politics and education and science. I want to fight for women to feel safe in the spaces they occupy, and I want to encourage compassion and critical thinking.

And then I stopped. The world doesn’t work that way. You don’t get to do everything and be everywhere all at once. Jobs want you to specialize. Algorithms want you to niche down. And our time isn’t unlimited. Then the despair I’ve been fighting for five years set in.

I used to have a singular focus, and it worked. I established a personal brand. I got a job in the field. I traveled and created and podcasted. I was an expert. I’ve always been an expert. Now, I’m an expert in whatever direction I get pointed toward, for whatever job I fall into. My agency feels gone, and every idea feels too disparate from the one before. What am I passionate about? And can I stick to it, or will I get bored a month from now?

It was a job application that snapped me out of this circling quandary. And while I still haven’t solved the questions that have plagued me since I walked away from the esports space, I remembered what started me into it in the first place. I’ve told the story in endless podcasts and meet-and-greets. I told it in a self-recorded video application for the job (awkward, I know), and so I will tell it one more time.

When I began streaming in the Dota 2 space—back in the early days, before Ninja had a toy at Walmart or KaiCenat broke every record under the sun—streaming was a hyper-niche corner of an incredibly sexist gamer-sphere. Women were few and far between, and they fell into some very specific categories.

• There was the raging goth girl who convinced chat of her gaming cred through fits of screaming to show how much she cared.
• There was the no-makeup-and-hoodie girl, who wouldn’t dare make her camera bigger than the tiniest box on the screen for fear of being called out for manipulating the men to gain popularity.
• There was the bubbly, large-camera-box girl who spoke in a high-pitched voice and played dumb about how the game worked, then walked away with a megakill and an “oops, guess I was lucky” attitude.

Chat pitted every girl against each other, accusing one type of stealing viewers from another, bringing their judgment and their boxes and making sure everyone fit securely inside their stereotypes. But I didn’t believe that any of these women were only what they showed to chat.

I saw the rager’s vulnerability after a rough comment.

I saw the serious one wear makeup and then feel like she had to defend herself.

I saw the bubbly one’s eyes tighten as people disrespected her skill and intentions.

Streaming isn’t any kind of picnic now, but it was a different beast back then.
And I almost felt defeated before I even started.

But then I had a realization. I was the bubbly one who forgot the basics and liked someone holding her hand through how to do something. I was in love with dressing up and fancy makeup some days, while other days I just wanted to stay in my sweatpants and grind MMR. I was the rager. The compassionate one. The heavy metal and pop music-loving woman.

I was all of these women, and none of them. I would stream and be authentically me. I would create a space where people could be themselves. A place rooted in compassion, openness, and safety.

Now, almost 12 years later, that’s what it is. It isn’t a large stream. It isn’t a busy place.
But it’s a space where we are there for each other. And while people come and go as their lives ebb and flow, I think back to all the times someone felt safe enough to open up. All the times people tried streaming themselves and found support and instruction from our space. The relationships, the frustration, the random adulting advice. I’m happy being the butt of the joke, because shame doesn’t exist when you feel safe enough to share your authentic self.

So why am I struggling with the concept of not having a focus?
That was my entire point when I got started. And while I may have lost the plot at points along the way, I always found my way back. The whole purpose of who I am and what I do is to humanize the ideal. I ask music artists about the realities of going on tour. I ask esports players about being away from their families. I cheer on my chat for getting engaged or buying a house, while also acknowledging all the frustration that comes with it.

An idealized existence isn’t real, and a niched-down, curated life is just a choice to appease the box people think they need to belong in.

I won’t live in that box.
I won’t pretend that it is my life.
And I will build a space that is real and natural.

If that means my career stalls without a clear focus, so be it. If that means my reach craters because algorithms can’t figure out who wants to see my content, fine. The people who do see it matter. And living my life as who I am matters.

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So here is what I want.

• I want to travel and laugh with my husband, who has helped me soften and appreciate life in ways I never thought I would be lucky enough to experience.
• I want to find a website, magazine, paper—whatever—that lets me write for them, paid or unpaid, to do interviews with music artists. To tell their story and humanize their lives.
• I want to play video games (mostly Dota) most nights, while my chat is there to provide sarcasm, advice, and tell me about their lives in little snippets so I know they’re okay.
• I’d love to have more viewers, because then chat is more active and it feels like a party every night. But I won’t risk nasty people ruining the vibe, so I’ll be content if the numbers never grow.
• I want to garden. I want to grow so many things, and I want to nerd out about it.
• I want to teach people how to be creators, help them create, help them learn. I hate when people struggle with basics or spend money they don’t need to.
• I want to quilt, and create, and sew. I want to have the hobbies people associate with elderly grandmas, and I want to surprise my friends with fun creations.
  One day, I want to write a book. I doubt I ever will, but maybe it will happen.

I don’t think we ask what we want often enough.
And if we do, are we really being honest?

So that is my homework—for me, and for you.
Ask yourself what you want. Be honest.

It may not be the answer that aligns with a capitalistic pursuit where more is better,
but hopefully it’s one that brings you peace.