Hey, everyone! I uh, hope you're all doing well. It's been a real long while since I really posted anything here about how I'm doing outside of art, so... it's time to sort of update you all on what's been going on in my world. A lot has happened since the start of the year.

These last few months have been really... strange for me. I'm sure by now you've all noticed the uptick in Roxy art around here, and that's mostly because I've formed sort of an... emotional attachment to her. Back at the beginning of November I had sort of a moment of clarity about my art, that all started when I was exposed to some... Twitter statistics surrounding a piece of Roxy art someone else drew. It made me realize how much my art had stagnated, and for a brief moment I sank into a sort of feeling of hopelessness. But I quickly pulled myself back out and decided to start focusing on REALLY improving my art, using Roxy as my means of doing so. And in doing this, I got really attached to her. And I mean REALLY attached. It's not often I'm motivated to actually ANIMATE a character that isn't my own. As for whether or not I think I've actually improved since November? I mean... maybe?

But this sudden drive to improve didn't stop at just my art. Around the end of December I started to look at myself as a person as well, and tried to pinpoint the things in my life that were causing me the most stress and keeping me depressed overall. The biggest thing I pinpointed was my job, a shitty retail grocery store position I'd been working for nearly seven years. Nothing about the environment I worked in there helped my mental state at all. The area in which I was forced to work was THREATENINGLY close to being an actual health hazard and management was becoming increasingly strict on workers like myself due to low staffing, forcing us to take on tasks far too large for us to reasonably fit within a single shift (and then writing us up indiscriminately when we inevitably failed to work at the superhuman pace they demanded). For years I'd been unable to quit, however, as it was my only source of income. But this time I had an ace up my sleeve.

Back in October, I landed a TA position with the school I'm currently attending for my master's degree. I knew I was going to be paid to do this but I was not told how much I was being paid exactly. However, toward the start of January I received confirmation that I would actually be earning JUST as much from the TA as I made at my other job, while working less hours! This allowed me to FINALLY quit my grocery store job after the better part of a decade, finally removing myself from the increasingly hostile environment there. The TA job started up in mid-January, and so far it's been a HELL of a lot easier than the grocery store.

Over the last month since I took this crucial first step, I've been focusing on both myself and my art with whatever free time I can find outside of class. On top of working out my terrible sleep schedule, I've also started going to therapy. I've been put on antidepressants which will hopefully kick in over the next couple weeks, and I hope therapy in general will help finally remove me from the headspace I've been stuck in regarding my art for the last eight or so years. I really just want to be a happy person again, and I'm tired of accidentally hurting others with my negativity. Someday, I hope those people will forgive me, but... I need to fix myself first. And that's exactly what I plan to do.

I think... I think things are finally starting to look up for me.