Well I have returned from AnthroCon 2013, and I must say, it was an interesting time. I say interesting, rather than either good or bad because so much happened on nearly every part of the spectrum. To preface the experience, I had hit a rather heavy bit of bad news right before the con, and almost had to cancel last minute for financial reasons. Luckily, I did get basically dragged along for it, and arrived in Pittsburgh Wednesday evening.

Now, one thing that might not seem obvious is that when you’re in a bad mental state, surrounding yourself with incredibly happy people can make things a lot worse on you. That unfortunately happened to me. After an okay-ish Thursday, I had a miserable Friday, largely spent in the room watching the Food Network and sleeping. Sad, I know, but that’s what happened. I was a massive sourpuss for a large portion of the con, actually.

We had the misfortune of two people who were committed to the room not showing up, not being contactable, and then being at the convention. I won’t mention names, and these are people who I had not mentioned previously, but there’s nothing more despicable in my mind than making plans, breaking them at the drop of a hat, offering no real explanation, and costing someone $400.

Now, that covers a lot of the bad. Despite all that, I did have some good times there, and I consider myself very fortunate to have gotten the chance to meet up and talk to a few people. Those of you whom I did meet up with, I want to apologize if I seemed awkward and aloof. I was a bit of an emotional wreck and I let it affect things a bit too much. I wish I could do a lot of things over and let myself enjoy the con rather than having let myself shut down as badly as I did for most of it.

That said, I want this con to be an overall positive despite the negatives I experienced, so I went hunting for gems and I managed to find one. Recently, as some of you may know, I have been finding the fandom less and less fun, and considered leaving it. Being at AnthroCon showed me something though. The reason I’m not having fun is because I’m not letting myself have it. I’m not participating in things; I’m just retracting into a shell and blaming everyone else for not dragging me out of it. That is going to stop.

I’m going to re-focus myself on what I loved about the furry fandom and why I wanted to be a part of it. I’m going to let myself have fun. I’m going to let myself make new friends. I’m going to stop being a wet sock who feels awkward around everyone. This is also coming with some much-needed out-of-the-fandom changes. I’m going to make myself do things more often. Even if it’s just a video game, anything that isn’t just sitting around doing nothing is an improvement. I’m going to push to lose the weight that I’ve been saying I should lose for years now. I’m going to stop blaming myself for everything and being constantly crippled by worrying and self-doubt.

It’s a complete overhaul from the ground up, and I hope that I find the support in my friends to make it happen.