I am behind the curve, so better late than never, I suppose. Told myself I was going to wait to do a yearly look over at my birthday...but here we are.
Personally, I believe that if people know what you have taken on, it just helps to understand them better.

2023 was not my year.
Plain and simple, but if we zoom in, it has to be the spring to fall months that really decided to kick my butt to the curb.
Since this was when I ultimately decided to start posting art. Not to say that it was a detriment, but what I was drawing just did not hit the mark.
Most of the time, I felt hindered by what I wanted to draw, and with not being the best with not a lot of artists to turn to, I was left to my own devices.
I used to draw Pokemon, and while I still will only in special cases, it...wasn't fun.
Yes, across the board there are ample people with Pokesonas, it's just another way to express yourself; for me, not so much.

So, flash forward to November, and I got into drawing more because of a very destructive workplace environment trying to get extra cash.
And then, I did something that was a bit out of my comfort zone, that many others have done before me:
I joined a Discord server, one of an artist who has been nothing but kind and welcome to me,
and, looking at my first pieces of art (and even older), I listened, I improved, I felt good about art again!

...and then, like clockwork, I found my stride in both art and myself. I was starting to want to showcase my art, let people see it, maybe even get a small following, I was wanting to do art again.
However, those feelings...came with the negatives, mainly due to my work environment but not feeling like I could really get a following.
it almost felt impossible, like I had nobody to really help get my art out there since I was still a beginner artist, and those dreadful feelings creeped its way back up.
and yet again, I had backed myself into a corner, when the funniest thing happened:

I was presented with another Discord server, this time of a Salamander's server, presented to me by my now plant friend,
and, while it took me a day to join, it was yet another pleasant decision that I had made in the last months.

Over the course of December, I began to start streaming art more, uploading more.
not really perfecting but sculpting the fennec I am today with help from the wonderful people I have met in the last month or so

and now, here I am... almost 20yrs old and just trying my best out here.
I still have moments of doubt, and fear, and overthinking, and really just any other thing you can think of, I probably do
I worry too much somedays, think I do too much, think I do too little, judge my every action with my own jumbled up meat patty...

But I know that the people I have found, who have welcomed this frantic, friendly Fennec into your lives in the last months or even the last weeks:
thank you, from my heart, because I don't know where I would be without all of you.

And to everyone who has found my content and enjoyed it:
thank you, as well, for giving me a chance to do something that I find enjoyable to create and put out there for others to see.

Finally, my goal for this year is just: To continue enjoying art, and to not linger on what I can and cannot change about myself.
so, for (hopefully) the final time, I give a heartfelt "I'm sorry" if I was ever too much, or frantic, or too emotional...
Since, again, I know that as me and as this dumb lil (or big) Fennec, I am accepted even for those faults and for my meat patty of a brain

Happy New Year's 26 Days late, everyone <3