Hey! I've been meaning to make an update about me for a while, so this is going to ramble a bit.

First up: It's my birthday! I'm turning 31. If you could wish me Happy Birthday, even if I don't know you, even if you don't mean it, it would really make my day special.
Edit: Thank you! To everyone who said happy birthday. It was a good day, and that's all I need out of birthdays anymore.

Secondly: Wow, passed 10k favs and over 350 watchers! I don't thank individually for those, so a huge thank you to everyone for clicking those buttons.
I never thought I'd receive that much attention. Of course most of it, 97.5% of it, is entirely to the credit of the artists I've commissioned. So really my thanks and gratitude to them.

It's only been a year and a half since I started buying art. I'd been lurking around the TF space for more than decade before that. Marveling at all the cool ideas people would have, all the great artists and writers. But I didn't dare join in. I had this conception of myself as being too cool for that. Why would I get labeled with the weirdos and perverts? TF has always been a fascination (and kink) for me, but I couldn't make it part of my outward identity. I had to keep my options open for what to get out of life. Surely if I did any more than silently browse I wouldn't be able to deny it later when I went on to be famous, or do great things. This of course was ignoring that at the time I only had 2 friends (and online at that), and while in a good position job wise, it would never amount to anything. And then I pushed away my best friend. It wasn't some big blow up or anything. He just wasn't maturing at the same rate as me, and instead of handling it I just got really immature with him as well and there developed this repelling force between us. My other friend, due to life circumstances, was never really available either. I thought I could go on without friends, that I would surely stumble into other people that I liked. But I wasn't putting myself out there. I didn't have a space to belong to. I was drifting, clinging desperately to the idea of having every possibility and not actually doing anything to build a future for myself.
During this time I did start favoriting TF work, rationalizing that I still wasn't getting involved. Lying to myself really. Seeing the community, or communities, and wishing I could be part of that. Of course my social skills fell off but then the pandemic happened. And suddenly it felt like I didn't need to try to be social. There was a great excuse not to be. So my social skills bottomed out but it was fine, for a time. Naturally that shared isolation wouldn't last. People would start to reconnect. It put pressure on me to try to connect with others as well. And maybe this time, I could reach out to the furries. It seemed like the only social media space left to me where people cared for each other even slightly.
But then my mental hang ups shifted. I had resolved myself to try to make friends, to join the community. But I'm not an artist. I hadn't written anything. This was a space for creatives, and that wasn't me. And buying art? Paying for someone else to do it and claiming some kind of credit? In my mind that was cheating. Furthermore, because capitalism is bad then using all the money I had saved up by not going anywhere or doing anything with people would make me evil. Yes, I do know how wrong that line of thinking is now.
So it's like May of 2022. I have a depression breakdown. My brain is spiraling with self-loathing, tearing me down and then flipping every rebuttal to bring me down further. Amidst this I come to one line of thinking that's my only way out. I want to join in on the transformation fun times, but I have no talent and will never have talent. The only thing I have is a well paying job, but using that money makes me evil. So let me be evil then. I will buy my way in, if that's what it takes. I will throw out all conceptions of myself as good or cool or some figure destined for greatness. I would cheat and manipulate and lie if I needed to, just to get the slightest bit of friendship. Of course it's funny to me now, putting putting such dire terms on so basic a thing. But that's how low I'd gotten.
So despite the depression talking while getting into it, I have to say that openly embracing being a furry has been one of the best decisions I've made. I did start buying commissions, which lead to talking with artists and joining Discord servers, which lead to talking with people more regularly. I've made several friends now. They've introduced me to more friends. I laugh now at how my goal was to get even one friend. Talking with artists has gotten me over my hang up about paying for art.

Thirdly: Things are really going great for me now. I even come around to having a fursona. Huge thanks to  Klaraklao (watch him, seriously) for the monkey TF which hit so right. My thinking is that Dies will refer to my human self, Volt will be the yellow monkey, and I'm still ok using any part of my username interchangeably. I still need to come up with outfits for Volt, but been a bit too busy for that.

And lastly for now: My own sexuality has been so slow to be discovered, but I have a boyfriend now and we have plans to meet in person in February. I'm not saying who, but I haven't hidden it either.
I just want to say to him, I know we're still in the cautiously optimistic phase but you've already made me feel so good about myself. I'm using all my wishes that we are a good match and I can't wait to see you.