After college and a big breakup, I needed something outside of my pretty boring sysadmin job to work on. It was 2021, so chess was having it's moment online with the Queen's Gambit and the pandemic. I played as a kid, but really got into playing more seriously online, following chess content creators, and studying strategy and openings.
I also started going to my local community college and university for tournaments. IRL tournaments are a different beast. Extremely kind community, but the level of play blows out anything I was doing socially. I enjoyed the feeling, the ability to focus on a singular game for over an hour (the distractions of the digital world and lack of discipline keep me from that now). I met some cool people. I started to go to other states as an excuse to travel.
I played in one tournament in Portland, Oregon. I played a kid that was maybe 5 years old. I've lost to plenty of kids before - you have to leave any ego you have to play in person. Yet in this match, I went up a bishop and the kid was able to still squeeze a win out with good pawn positioning. It honestly sucked. I dropped out of the tournament to enjoy being a tourist in Portland before going home. Not anyone's fault, but I always laugh that a kid who needed me to spell my last name for him on his move/scoring sheet beat the brakes off my psyche.
I mostly only play online now. Hit me up. And also watch this video if you also want to think chess is more important than it is.