My last journal entry here was overly optimistic. The tragedies of this past year have broken me, and it's been a struggle to put my life back together in even the most rudimentary of ways.

May 22nd last year I was informed my closest friend Lara/Jocasta/Corvidy had died. Unexpectedly, and with police who refused to help for three days despite my begging until her husband came home and actually found her body. For a month after we all thought she had killed herself, but the coroner eventually said not. She just died in her sleep. Likely a combination of the emotional strain she was under and a weak heart.

I laid crows wings on her coffin. The trauma hasn't lessened.

A few months later, and shortly after my last journal we got news that my grandmother, my last living grandparent, had died. She had been nearly deaf and blind as well as experiencing increasingly violent dementia for several years, so in many ways she had been gone for a long time already.

There was a small silver lining that she left a small inheritance for me. Enough to give me some working capital again, as I had been unable to work since May and my finances had dried up as a result.

It has been a struggle to do anything at all. There doesn't feel like there's a point to anything. Bereavement counselling is helping a little, as is working through a long list of unfinished projects and to-do tasks. I've also been working to revive this business, and I hope it will give me some sense of purpose again.

For the first time in a year there is fresh stock in my shop, and more to come. Some equipment has been upgraded and more is due to be soon. I hope to get some momentum going again. At very least I have a long list of jobs still to do.

Further journals will hopefully be focussing on new products again. But I felt I should explain where I've been for the last year.