I'm in a hurry so gotta be fast

1. I'm back
2. I'm gay
3. Very gay. Like you can't even imagine.
4. I am finally at peace with myself and most of my core identities, including being a furry. So you can guess I'll be uploading soon!

See ya <3

Sadly, I haven't been uploading anything but I recently got back to drawing, so maybe it's going to change soon. And while it's all on the paper still, why not give another bump to this journal thingy.

I went to a furry convention this year, it was awesome. Can't really find a better word or the energy to elaborate, but yes, geek conventions are the best. Or at least the furry ones. So much feels. Wonderful. I love my fandom.

In less wonderful news, I got into and out of a new relationship in a span of a month. It started on the con and didn't really stand the test of mundane, non-festive living. It's hard for me to say wthether the person is flat-out bad or just "not the right one", but my heart was protesting eagerly, so I resigned - despite a sincere and passionate feeling from the other side.

Some other time, maybe I would give this a try. But now there appeared too little trust to move further.

I hate that my therapist hardly said anything besides "it's all in my head", that I just projected my faults on the guy, recognized my own shortcomings and got appalled. She didn't say and even specifically noted so, that I can't make my own decisions and see for myself which relationship is promising and which is not, who's a good person and who isn't, but my guilt complex only needed that much to raise its ugly head and wiggle it in acceptance. Yes, this is exactly what I need after around two years of blaming myself for my own infatuation: feel bad for turning down another one. I mean, seeing how "graciously" I handled being dumped myself, it's obvious I would - so why rub salt in the wound?

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

I think I officially hate romance. I can see and explain how beast-headed people make sense, but this thing - not so much. It must have been invented by devil.

I feel a little awkward posting a journal on an art site where I'm supposed to upload art but havent' fooooor... a LONG freaking time (congrats, self, keep this shit up) and vent while I should practise drawing. But first, I'm twice as awkward having this over-the-top epiphany celebration on the profile page for everyone to see (yeah, it's kinda important but come on, it's been a year. A YEAR. This is now looking like a terrifying freeze frame) and second, I apparently have no other place to confess the following, because I've vented on my Russian blog for many times enough and am uncomfortable to share this particular issue with each and everyone who follows me there. Or maybe I'm too uncomfortable to speak about it in my mother tongue. I guess that, just like with the latest journal, it's both.

So, uh... How does one handle this state when you realize that you've been striving to become an X for a great deal of your life but a) kinda failed, b) don't even need it BUT still afraid shitless someone's going to come and get you for failing at being an X? When you feel like a literal tool which has been gladly consenting to being used but only now became aware of its objectified position and wants to break out of its predetermined role despite having no other field to turn to than the one it was crafted for? 'Cause this is how I feel now.

The X in question is an ace student, a 'nerd'. I used to be one in school but slided down abruptly in the first very university I've attended. In the second one things got better for a considerate period of time but then followed the same route. I can't study, I just can't. And it took me something like four freaking years to fully embrace the fact I have a serious problem and ain't just indulging a stupid whim. To actually start trusting the idea of maybe doing something *I* want for once instead of satisfying anyone else's anticipations.

What's killing me is that I chose the right field. I'm not studying what I hate, I love this sphere of knowledge, it's my favourite. I'm preparing myself for a profession I deeply aspire for. And even if I drop out of the college completely, I will never avoid the activities associated with learning because they're my favourite as well. I'm going to write a lot and read a lot anyway, wherever I wander. However, becuase of my aversion to studying I subsequently can't bring myself to regularly doing these.

Reading and writing seem forever defiled for me. They're defiled by the ranking system, by the utter terror of getting left behind other, more diligent students and the way too intoxitating excitement of being better than everyone else. By the vile, rotten concept of equality between 'someone who knows a lot' and 'someone worth loving' which infiltrates your mind without your and your mentors' noticing. By the sheer despair and panic the I-will-get-accepted-once-I-succeed-academically mentality has merged me into other the course of many years. I hated to admit it, I fought this, I thought it a ridiculous and disgraceful rebellion but now it's the only truth I actually adhere to: THIS BULLSHIT MUST FREE MY HEAD FROM ITS PRESENCE, RIGHT NOW. If proper and timely education is the cost - well, shit. Whatever. My freaking sanity's at stake and my grades ain't gonna ascend anyway.

Unfortunately it doesn't really matter whether I'm in or out the college. The poison has soaked deeply into my brain. Whenever I sit down to enjoy anything wit-involving (anything at all: a half-decent book, a prog rock album, even a thorough contemplation of some matter) in a corner of my conscious appears a little neatly dressed and combed perfect student (usually a she) who then starts smirking and gloating on what a pretentious moron I am. The trick is that the moment I put away the too clever book and decide on, I dunno, drawing critters or something plebeian like that, the same imaginary person begins to shame me for not doing anything about my whole moronity situation. BECAUSE IT'S CLEAR I HAVE TO. I'm so freaking stupid and ignorant y'know! And I have no business wasting oxygen until I improve. Which is, by the way, impossible according to the little pest's standards - but it's okay because suffering is good for me (cuts to evil-spectacled Gendo giggling happily under his hands).

I wish I could erase this Gendo-ing student from my inner world but they're tenacious like a dandelion. And don't get me wrong, it's not some kind of hallucination, it's just this ceaseless anxious back-thought you can't get rid of even if you want to. I imagine many people have this but I'm afraid my case is borderline grave. It impedes my living terribly, not anymore limited by academia, and I'm exhausted of searching for cure.

I've been in therapy for two years or so and it helps, but I feel exasperatingly helpless in between the sessions. My relationship with parents has gotten better and still I'm afraid to ask them for help all the time and my friends... Heh, I started having friends, surprisingly, but those my age are overwhelmed by their own struggles and the more stable and mature ones happen to be busy every day (one resides in another city, another one in another country. Freaking ace). I'm out of safe places and psychological defences, I nearly want to seek total oblivion. What kills me most is that I do have plans, I do have actual ambitions I'm ready to fulfill - I have found them at last! (The furry thing is surely one of them, lol - but seriously, this stuff here's been a marvelous source of fresh air for me.) But, once again, the anxiety cuts me from even that. And I remain hopeless.

Everyone looks so cheerful and assured due to my going back to college. And I hate that despite my own willing to keep studying I'm obviously screaming NO deep inside, and that there's almost no place where I could let it out - and my home is not one of them (even if the reason why not is my own fear and not the parents' wrath which anyway exploded rarely and by now has been retired for good).

I was raised in a healthy family, I know we're healthy. I don't even know how I managed to end up like this =___=


UPD For an extra flavour there's some cu-- I mean bright and fair lady trolling me on LJ which happens to me, uh. Never. WTF, I post once a month and have like five readers who actually give a shit about my posts. According to this unexpected visitor, you can't judge the Great Gatsby movie, especially say it sucks if you haven't read the book (I know it's classics out there in States but I'm Russian and we have a different school program, so okay, I haven't, I'm sorry, geez). Well, fuck you. I can. It sucks. It's that simple.

Now I'm going to read this motherfreaking book just out of spite. And guess what, if this self-centered prick of a protagonist is shown as sympathetically as he is in the movie, I'm gonna judge it, too, because I have a notion of good and evil and that Gatsby is not exactly nice (and unlike some people I can calmly explain why). OPINIONS HOW DO THEY WORK AND HOW DARE PEOPLE DISAGREE WITH ME <--- this right here should. Go. Away. Kay thanks.

It's been an exceptionally marvelous couple of weeks. Since the day of Orthodox Easter my entire world has been changing drastically, my soul scrambling out of disturbing darkness and turning towards what I hope is glimpses of divine light.

In Western world it is Christmas day that's believed to be miraculous, but as an Orthodox Christian I cherish Easter more, so I suppose it's natural that I was hoping (half-heartedly) for a miracle to occur specifically on this date - and, against all odds, did actually receive it. To properly convey its meaning to me I would have to retell the entire last six months of my life, and that's a tough enterprise, seeing this was - and surely will ever be - one of the most important periods in my life. In short, for this whole time I've been struggling with my first break-up ever (not initiated by me, too, though it doesn't really matter now) - and it seems like I have finally overcome the last barrier which was separating me from a psychologically and spiritually sound state I was desperately craving for. And it is no return to the exact spot I started from, no frustrated erasure of things done and experienced; it's a whole new level of understanding, a new, better, maybe even a tiny bit wiser way to feel, to exist, to believe.

What is most staggering, I didn't gradually progress to this point - it came to me abruptly, in a single terrifying thought I had to dare to think - and as I looked at it closely, every piece of my soul trembled under an unprecedented stroke of indescribable silence and awe bordering on terror. I should note that I didn't in any way try to feign these extraordinary emotions as to convince myself in the moment's importance, like I often do... Alright, maybe I did concentrate on them a little too much in a futile attempt of savouring them (turned out those were not of the savourable ones) - but I could swear they were real like a lightning in the sky. Up to that second I've been reflecting on love, bathing in love, losing love, regaining love, raging, grieving, balancing a thousand of contradictory impulses, seeking for one true way to handle all this as a Christian... And the next moment I, at last, have seemingly found a satisfyingly stable and 'righteous' standpoint, God (I know, cheesy - but I haven't felt like this in a lifetime despite my proneness to being exalted, so I will always insist it was God) indicated the last piece I was still lacking. Or, more precisely, stripped me of one last tricky psychological defense I unconsciously intended on grasping, refusing to realize its neurotic, egoistical nature.

As of now I have already redipped myself in despondency and some other toxic things, but the initial strike of almost frightening pureness, rapture, hope, inspiration and feeling of freedom only restrained by the urgent need to write (write! after all these years of fruitless circling around the blank paper sheet!) was simply stupendous.

I cannot go into details now (I doubt anyone is even interested), but here is the thing I learned: don't try to grasp on things which you believe make you better - especially 'more righteous'. Don't try to conserve in yourself and for yourself what is meant for other people - namely, love. When you cannot directly care for this other person, when none of your tenderness is needed by that for whom it was intended and there only remains this warm, fuzzy feeling which is so sweet to indulge in - give that away, too.

My problem's that I for the longest time have practically worshipped my tender feelings as a manifestation of the Spirit in me (it IS pretty cheesy and I see it especially clearly now; but you should bear in mind that Christians actually deem Godly and human love - romantic love, too - to be unequal forms of the same phenomenon). I was trying to hold on them to prevent myself from sliding into hatred and resentment - and I did succeed, but in the end this whole self-praising for the mere ability to be in love got simply ridiculous. Everything has its time and purpose, so even the most beautiful things are truly beautiful when handled appropriately - and the ultimate purpose of romantic love is to be shared. I discovered that in my situation it was almost sinful to find solitary pleasure in stroking this emotion, inflaming it more and more, because it did nothing but holding me back, to the day I loved not yet a person but a vague, idealized - and, consequently, dead - image of them. It was an obvious regression, an abuse (ie an improper use), a kind of spiritual masturbation. Thank God I finally saw it. I don't want to say I don't love the person anymore (have I truly? God's to decide) but I from now on I'll surely refrain from loving the love in me, especially when it serves no one but my pride.


'Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it'. (Russian translation says 'soul' which I prefer even more.) I guess I get it now... a little.

***

PS Aaand since I'm posting it here, I suppose it should be mentioned that I'm so immensely happy now that I could even try and - gasp! - draw and upload some more anthros! Yay for being creative! :D *dances*

Now I'm officially an artist. There is a long road lying ahead of me, for my current skills are approximately 10% of what I'd really like to be capable of performing. This means a lot of studying, a lot of training, a lot of mundane repetition - but also a lot of changing, improving and self-discovering.

Wish me luck! :)

Here be my English log. Because it has to be somewhere by now, and this is the place where my English teacher will be least likely to find it :)

I wish someone would read my ramblings and correct my mistakes as I post, but I guess no-one is going to wander over here unless I start uploading fancy pictures. And this means more drawing studies which is technically good, so...

But damn, will it take a lot of time to improve >:C Oh well.