It is 25.11.25. A good day. A good date. Twentyfive, eleven, twentyfive. And yes, that is how you write a date. The day comes first.

As of this day, I am 45 years old. That is… a relatively high number. I am getting old. My reflexes aren’t what they used to be anymore. Joints and muscles can’t quite keep up. And while my ears are still doing fine, my eyes are starting to give. I’ve actually gotten glasses to use while painting.

But I don’t want to bore you with my physical ails. They are boring. Psychological ails are much more fun! :P

I kid.

Mostly.

I have been diagnosed with depression and I am looking into getting therapy for that. But that is not what I mean. Not really. I guess they could all be connected… but I’m not qualified to make any calls on that.

There are a lot of people who I like to call friends who are in the LGBTQ community. And that makes one think. Now, I’m not going to suddenly announce that I am trans. Although, if I was 20 years younger, I think I might. And yes, that is probably something I should bring up in therapy, once I have one.

No, what I mean is, it got me thinking about what I want to do with myself. My identity. My ‘sona, so to speak. Who and what is “Tygon”?

It was so simple in the beginning. Myself, but a tigon (tiger-lion hybrid, for those who don’t know. Not the same as a liger, but that’s a different topic). But things have changed since that. I’m not really… personifying that anymore. So, for a long while Tygon hasn’t been much more than what I use as my avatar picture. But it goes beyond that. Tygon has seen changes. At one point, relatively early in my time as a furry, I created a female version. That was just a thing we did. For a laugh, as they say. But again, there was more. Different versions, different incarnations. There was a Tygon from a sci-fi setting. One that was more fantasy. There were even different species. Most of those just for one-off pictures. Mostly because I thought it would be neat. Again, for a laugh. For fun. But there was one that stuck around longer, namely the chakat version. I liked chakats. A felitaur was a neat concept, and so was being both genders at the same time. It was around the same time that I discovered my bisexuality (although I consider myself more asexual by now, but again, different topic), so that was rather appealing as well. However, despite getting several pictures commissioned, I never really became part of the chakat community. I think that is in part social anxiety. But also because at that point I was already not really doing anything ‘sona-wise. It was also shortly before the creation of Mikia, who promptly took up much of my attention.

Ever since then the closest thing I have ever come to actually do anything with Tygon was when I got that piece of chocobotaur art with Blackpaw. But even then nothing really came of it.

So, I have to make some sort of decision. Do I want to leave Tygon as little more than my online avatar? I kinda want to do more. I see so many people who really identify with their 'sona. I used to, but not anymore and I kinda want that back. But what? And how? There’s so many things to figure out. Do I want to keep the male version Tygon started out as? Female? The chakat one? And what ramifications will that have for RL me? Because I am sure there will be some sort of ramifications.

As you can probably guess by now, I don’t know. I would ask for advice, but I suspect that this is one of those deeply personal decisions that I can only make by myself. On the other hand, it has been suggested to me that I need to be more open, especially with my problems, instead of keeping everything to myself.

On a similar note, there is a good number of art of Tygon that I have gotten over the years but never actually posted. I should do that.

Anyway, happy birthday to me. Thank you all for reading <3