Today marks the 1-year anniversary of me taking the plunge and joining the furry_irl Discord, and things pretty much panned out exactly as I was expecting they would. I do indeed look back on those first few months and cringe somewhat, as I knew I would at the time. But since then I've done a whole lot more. I now moderate the Discord server I joined, I run my own Telegram chatroom for UK dragons (hey come say hi!), I went to Scotiacon and am down for attending JFTW next week and Confuzzled in a couple of months' time. I've done meets all over the country, from Manchester to London.

I've made a few hundred quid from selling Telegram stickers (want a thinking animal? Check out my commissions!), I've spent all that money on furry art. I've been able to commission some of my favourite artists, who I've admired from afar for years. I've met and interacted with people I never thought I would. I've found out several people in my non-furry life are actually furries, which is pretty damn funny, and really not what I expected (definitely the weirdest was a work colleague who I bumped into on furry twitter).

It's not been perfect. I've had my down days, I've been morose. I still have legitimately no idea about my sexuality which makes it kind of awkward for the people who come onto me (yeah that sounds like a humblebrag, it isn't). This is despite a number of occasions exploring it with others. If anything that's just left me feeling even weirder.

I don't update my journals very often, but my twitter is pretty active. I'm currently researching furmeet attendance patterns because I figure I might as well use my free rail travel for good rather than evil.

So that's Year 1. Come a long way. Things still aren't perfect, but I think overall I'm in a better position than I was a year ago, and I've got a lot of y'all to thank for that.