Over the past year, I’ve spent much of my free time playing Pokemon Go and building strong connections with people from around the world through playing the game, like my New York City-area friends, Grant and Alex, who recently visited Altoona for the first time last week.

They were on their way home from a road trip that started in Canada and took them through many Midwestern states to visit with members of their Twitch community.

While in Altoona, they drove past the McDonald’s restaurant where Luigi Mangione was arrested, shopped at Best Buy for Pokemon cards and had lunch with me at Belly Busters. They even took a piece of Altoona home with them in the form of Mallo Cups from the Boyer Candy Co.

Someone else who inspires me to be “the highest version of” myself is my friend, AyyyLexa, who turns 30 today (Saturday). Many of my Pokemon Go friends are people I’ve met through her online community.

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella meets Pokemon Go content creator AyyyLexa during the in-person Unova Tour event Feb. 22 in Pasadena, California. AyyyLexa has nearly 50,000 YouTube subscribers and more than 12,000 followers on Twitch. Mirror photo by Matt Churella

I only know most of them by their Pokemon Go usernames or through a first-name basis. But I consider them to be part of my extended family because they’ve supported me through some of my darkest days this year, most notably when both my grandfather, Ron Puleo, and my former academic adviser, Lee Wood, died.

Yet, for all of its challenging moments, this year has been rewarding, too.

While I was not successful in achieving my dream of winning a Golden Quill, I was nominated and there is always next year. And while I might have lost my part-time job, I did find another.

A lot of my newfound perspective has to do with surrounding myself with encouraging and supportive people.

On a larger scale, I got to fly to Los Angeles and meet many of my Pokemon Go friends in real life for the first time at the

in-person Unova Tour event — Alexa (AyyyLexa/Oregon), Billy (The Trainer Club/Oregon), Mike (1LunaticCupCake/Indiana), Raymond (XX1VFIGHT/Washington), Ken (MyFakeCharizard/Ireland) and Carlos (Birdhouse00742/California).

We met again at this year’s Go Fest in New Jersey, and my guess is we’ll all meet again one day, likely at a park or a stadium, trying to hunt shiny Pokemon and explore a new place together.

In a few weeks, I’ll get to see Alexa again in Philadelphia during the global Go Wild Area event, which features the return of “Mighty Pokemon” — rare, fully evolved Pokemon that have higher individual values and combat power than regular Pokemon in the wild.

Essentially, there’s a lot of potential to catch powerful Pokemon during this event and it’s going to be a fun time.

Pokemon Go is releasing silver bottle caps during this year’s event as part of the “GO Pass Deluxe: Into the Wild” pass. Silver bottle caps allow trainers to increase a Pokemon’s attack, defense or hit points (HP) through a hyper training process.

Bottle caps can be used to force a shundo — a shiny Pokemon with perfect IVs. I plan to use mine on a shiny Dratini, one of Alexa’s favorite Pokemon, to commemorate the fact that I am playing the event alongside my friend.

In one of her streams earlier this year, Alexa told me that energy flows where attention goes. I don’t know why that particular saying stuck with me, but it did.

I’ve tried to change my perspective on life this year by focusing on my goals and giving less attention to my worries and fears. That’s a direct influence of Alexa and others on my life.

I became more of my authentic self by doing things that I am passionate about — like playing Pokemon Go — and through that, I’ve found a community of people who accept me and share my values, interests and goals.

One thing I’ve learned is that a person’s sense of belonging doesn’t necessarily have to be tied to the people within his or her neighborhood. It’s the people you choose to surround yourself with who matter the most.

Mirror Staff Writer

Matt Churella is at

814-946-7520 and mchurella

@altoonamirror.com