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11/13 Long time no see
7 years ago
Hey guys, how’s it going?
Honestly, it feels nice writing a journal entry again... very nostalgic.
Firstly, I wanted to apologize for kinda just disappearing off the face of the earth for so long. I was just doing a lot of things, going through a lot of growth and pain.
I want to be completely transparent on the things I’ve just been going through, and it really came between myself and art. While I enjoyed my time here, I realized that art became more of a personal hobby than an ambition.
I realized I was searching for a lot of shallow things like grandeous fame and some kind of superiority complex.
It was hard, but I stopped doing art for a long time...
I felt terrible every time I felt creative, mainly because of expectations I placed on myself when I was young. Reality is cruel in that your expectations usually don’t meet fruition.
It was very soul crushing and I didn’t know what I was doing wrong.
But, I knew that it was me with the problem and I needed to grow into a better person.
I started going to therapy, dealing with my, in truth, inferiority complex and workong on a lot of my anger issues (I know, I don’t like talking about it. It was never abusive by any means and was more a personal choice to recover for my own health.)
I wanted to become a happier person authentically and have spent a lot of time unpacking myself and my own personal issues.
And I came to a point where I wanted to get back out there, allow myself to be creative and become a more true version of myself. And I know, it’s hard and scary to be vulnerable, but I truly believe that being vulnerable is something I cherish about my personality.
I feel a lot better about myself and my art and my personal identity.
In the furry community and internet culture in general, we put so much pressure on ourselves to have a certain identity to relate to others — and it happened to me too.
It’s OK, we’re just people.
I’ve really come to love myself and my growth, and it feels nice to really say something about it.
Maybe it’ll just be seen as pedantic, or maybe someone may read this and relate to my sentiments. I don’t personally care much more about that. I always wished I could turn back time and tell myself everything that was troubling me and how to deal with it. It took me until 24 to even start looking outside of my own head.
It’s in that struggle that I have been finding peace internally and has allowed my to go on some many fun adventures — I truly have to thank my boyfriend. He’s not on FA or anything like that, but he’s someone who’s been able to give my the chance to see the world from outside of my own perspective. I’ve learned so much about the culture outside of my window, dealt with problems and situations that I thought would kill me and have come to own my power as me.
I don’t even mind admitting that, call it the Moon and Rising Cancer in me...
Make no mistake, I’m not upset about that nor do I regret my feelings both back then and now. A part of learning to love yourself is forgiveness to the past and I’m just really happy that I feel a healthier relationship with art and myself.
In the past, art and expectations for myself made me create a toxic realtionship with art — I know it’s common, but I felt helpless and worthless. I felt like I had no value, and that was a horrid way to treat myself.
I said, “I want to feel better.”
I moved from North Carolina to Washington DC, I work full-time in Marketing, so I still get to use my skills a lot and have found new things that I enjoy. So I guess you still can’t take the art out of the artist.
And recently, I was thinking and I decided that I wanted to come back to FA and social media with my own outlook and looking to my art as personal therapy and expression.
I won’t really be doing commissions or anything very serious, but if you want something, we can talk about it — it just depends. I prefer just making little things and posting it up, more than money or recognition.
Personally, I’ve been in the mindset of trying to make friends and pop out of my shell more, without feeling like I’m wearing masks or working so hard. Because the more I tried to dig into a “persona” I hated my authentic nature more and more. Seeing myself as painfully awkward and childish, but the thing about adulthood has been realizing the power I have, owning myself and my mannerisms and just existing as happily as I can.
Sometimes, I have days where I get back to that depressive mindset, but it’s steadily disappearing more and more. And I’m just really happy that I feel happy. I want to share that genuine feeling and I know I can.
So, it’s a pleasure to meet your acquaintance, and if I knew you before, I hope we still all get along well enough.
Please, stay healthy. It’s really difficult for many people like me to acknowledge those feelings and toxic thoughts in pursuit of other things or out of outright rejection of that — but your feelings do matter!
So, if you are like how I am, then know that what you feel isn’t a problem.
Feeling worthlessness and the struggle, sadness, despair and depression, these are all feelings that we can have from time to time, sometimes it’s always coming...
But we have control over what we do with those feelings...
Don’t be afraid to listen to them, and if you feel alone, know that I support your feelings.
We all may not have everything together yet, and that’s OK.
We may feel broken, but we aren’t, we all have flaws that we can turn into strengths.
We all may not be where we saw ourselves, and that’s OK...
We may feel uncomfortable by a lot of things, but discomfort is a necessary feeling to have.
Discomfort of the unknown can be a great teacher, if you don’t close the door.
... There’s a happiness to be found in the journey.
And it’s nice to be back and I hope everyone is doing well.
Sorry for the PSA ramble at the end, that was a more a message to a younger Tuchi in a different time. I know he’ll never see it, but I think he’ll be happy with the results.
Thanks guys for being so supportive, it really means a lot to me.
welcome back man *hug*