I am in a very different place than I was last year.

I mean that both figuratively and literally. The short version: I fell in love and moved from California to Illinois (USA).

The long version: that's because on January 14, 2022, I made the craziest decision of my life: I traveled by airplane for the first time to see a man I had known for only three months. Outside of my home state, two time zones away. On my own. And having never dated anyone before him.

A lot of firsts happened that day, but let's go back to the events three months prior--in October of 2021, in an innocent attempt to find like-minded people to socialize with, I joined a Discord server for childfree people. Just a few days later, after I posted my introduction, I got a message from someone. Before getting this message though, I'd read his introduction (he was new too), and when I stumbled across a photo he shared of himself, I thought: if he talks to me, I'm done. 😳 And that's exactly what happened. Within two days of meeting, my journal saw some very dramatic entries, with me writing things like: "I have never met someone so aligned with who I am in my whole life. And I look forward to spending the rest of mine with him."

It sounds extreme, but it's true what people say: when you know, you know. We became very close, very fast – we met October 28, became a couple November 7, said our first "I love you"s November 10, talked on the phone November 11, and finally video called on November 26 (I'm a freak about dates apparently). On that video call, we had a very serious discussion about our relationship, and it was decided that I should visit him, so that’s how I ended up where I was on January 14. 😀 I stayed for five weeks, returned to my home state to get my shit together, and officially moved into his place on March 23. (Once again: outside of my home state. Two time zones away. On my own. And having never dated anyone before him. )

ANYWAY in the months since then, I’ve gotten my first job, been promoted once, gotten a raise twice, and have been very busy as I work full time with a long commute. We also got engaged in September, and the only reason we’re not already married is because we had to wait for his ID to come in the mail after he’d needed to send it and the agency he sent it to lost it (😒). But we finally got it a few days ago, so now we’ll be busy planning the wedding and some other things. I want to get myself a passport soon as well, so I’ll keep busy with that too.

But the real news that's relevant to you guys over here in furryland: I'm currently designing my fiancé's fursona, and I’m gonna post him soon, which is partly why I decided to write this longa** newsletter of a post. I wanted to kind of "introduce" him before posting his character, and also explain what I was up to in 2022. And, now that I’m making my man a fursona, I'm suddenly SUPER motivated to make furry art again, and have picked up where I left off on some WIPs from over a year ago. I already feel much more alive and fulfilled than I did just a few days ago. Furry art does that to me and I'm burnt out from work, so that was very needed and I'm relieved to have this outlet, always.

Happy new year by the way–I hope you've all been well! :)