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  • 2021 Year Retrospective

    Picture me taking a deep breath before going through this year. Its a bit of a doozy and I will try not to be a bummer because some parts of it, were much harder than others but I don’t entirely want to pretend like they weren’t. There were some good things. I do want to focus on those, but I feel the need to validate that this was just a really hard year for me and it’s going to take a lot of introspective and trial and error in 2022 to find that spark in me again. I feel like I lost it this year but, that happens sometimes and that’s okay.

    I feel like I struggled a lot this year personally with admitting my limits. With putting my personal well being at the risk of bending over for people. It was… really hard to find that balance this year. I don’t think I’m the only one who struggled and I want to be there for everyone the best that I can be. But I think I lost myself a little bit along the way. I forget that even though I can tough out a lot of things in the moment, the weight they leave behind can really add up. I leave this year feeling like I’ve failed a lot of people, both friends and family, despite my attempts to be there for them all. Its a lot to balance. But who is going to do it if not me?

    (Um… pro-tip the world still continues to turn even if I cant fix everything right away. I am… learning that very slowly. But we’re getting there).

    I am honestly extremely lucky to have a rock in my partner to keep me anchored through it all.

    But Ouf. Here we go.

    January — We spend the first month of the New Year in isolation, wrapping up a small project we decided to start on a whim in December last year. It’s hard but we expected it this year. Its weird typing this now, realising we were likely under curfew then and hoping numbers settled into some semblance of normalcy. I have a call with my publisher… this isn’t the start to a new year I was expecting.

    February — We wrapped up Myth Retold’s Kickstarter this month. I have three brand new books and I am emotional about them and the quality they bring. I am honoured by the folks who read them and tell me great things about them. It’s a while before things like curfew and numbers slow down on the pandemic side of things. But that’s okay, we’ll get through it and we’ll have a whole lot to show for it. We pass the year mark for Paint The Town Red here and feel… extremely guilty about it but its fine, its fine, we are almost there!!

    March — We celebrate a small birthday for Tas, things start looking up, pandemic numbers are dropping, there is news now about vaccines, there is a lot more hope here for a more normal summer but we’re not betting too greatly on it in the fear of being disappointed.

    April — We wrap up another Kickstarter: the Underworld Myths Collection and it goes relatively smoothly. Our business is re-organized we are keeping up with things better than we ever have been. Our numbers are doing pretty good for sales, the future does look brighter and we are eager for it. Eager for something a bit more normal.

    May — The last of our heavy burdens is lifted when we finally finish Paint The Town Red V2 in time for TCAF’s online show. At the end of this month we are all emotional, both our families receive their first dose of the vaccine against COVID. We’re extremely hopeful, extremely grateful and looking far more optimistically towards a summer with friends. That Tas might be able to finally travel back home to visit family.

    June — We launch a Kickstarter for Prism Knights. The last two books of this series put it to rest after I started it in 2017. Its bittersweet. The campaign does tremendously well. I am elated and floored by the reception of this little book series and have high hopes for future crowdfunding campaigns of the same vein. We end this month off on a high note, we get vaccinated with our second dose!! We have an outdoor gathering with family for the first time in just about two years. We celebrate my grandmother’s 80th and try to catch up on everything we’ve missed. It feels great to see people again.

    August — Is by far the most exciting month. The one with the highest ups, the lowest downs. Ouf. It is a lot. We start off by tabling at our first Pride. We are safe, wearing masks, pre-packaging all of our goods for any sales made and we are well over two weeks after receiving our second dose of the vaccination. We don’t sell great but getting out there again is fantastic.

    My partner and I get engaged!! I personally still can’t believe I plucked up the courage to ask her but it happened! Its an extremely hot month and this day is no exception. We are both elated and share this moment with eager friends.

    This moment is overshadowed by a few things. Family drama, funerals (honestly just poorly timed on my part I was too eager to have something happy to share in light of a lot of the negatives from the beginning of this year and the end of the last). The family drama persists and eats away at me personally for the rest of the year.

    I turn 29 and we are finally comfortable enough to start regularly going to the gym again (not related really but I am determined to get rIPPED this year).

    September — We celebrate my mom’s birthday together! Family drama persists and grows. There is talk of a fourth wave with a variant we call Delta at this time. Tas is too nervous to travel and postpones her trip home. I get an agent which is exciting! My book deal falls through though and I am personally ridden with guilt and frustration. I hate myself for this for months later. My tattoo appointment falls through, one I’ve been looking forward to for weeks.

    We launch a Kickstarter for a new product we’ve never attempted before with the help of our friends and find that it does insanely well. Money is a little less tight, we breathe a lot easier for a little while longer.

    October — This month is a little bit easier. We get enveloped in the spooky season. We take more walks and enjoy the scenery more. We entrench ourselves in our work and in watching spooky things to get into the mood. I struggle with the fog that’s overcome me. I feel like everything is a little bit further away but its okay. I’ll get through it. I chalk it up to a funk. I limit my time on social media hoping this will cut me a break and it does help in part.

    November — Tas is finally able to visit home. Its a weird time this whole week is strange, the two cats are not sure what to feel about it (happy 2nd birthday to them)! I attempt NaNo and don’t quite succeed at the full-throttle sprint BUT I do get an insane amount of writing done (far more than I have previously). The fog & feeling persists. I get a new tattoo (finally). The end of the month brings word of a new variant (omicron..)…. this one seems to spread despite the two doses of vaccine we’ve gotten so far…

    We do a couple small conventions and they are both like a breath of fresh air. To see people reacting to your work, to see a new table filled with different works we haven’t had the chance to display before… its just really nice.

    December — ….. ugh. The fog gets worse. Kickstarter shits the bricks with a new blockchain reveal, this will set our company back by the thousands if people keep to their word against pledging to projects on the platform. We aren’t making usual sales, on Etsy, on our shop. I melt down. I’m fine. I’m fine.

    The familial pressure starts to sink its teeth into my skin. I feel like I’m suffocating. I’m having terrible conversations and can’t seem to get across that I’m drowning even though it feels so obvious. I’m pushed into being placid and placating. I don’t know how to build boundaries without hurting feelings so I pull away. I don’t know how to tell people to stop without worrying I will push them away permanently.

    Breathe. This is hard for me to write because its the first time I’m acknowledging this openly. I don’t want to make enemies I just want to disappear for a while and breathe and breathe and breathe.

    I promise to make next year better for myself.

    I’m typing this and its nearly 2am and I don’t know who might see this, who might be hurt by it. I’m hurt. I’m hurting and I’m bleeding. This year I’ve struggled, placatingly through mis-gendering and inexcusable dead-naming. I am patient, I am so extremely patient. I let people sweep my engagement under mountains of pettiness and pain. I tell myself too often to shut up shut up. I can’t do this to myself anymore.

    2022 is going to be hard. But I need to make room for myself and learn what my limits are. I can’t be everyone’s rock no matter how hard I try. I still want to be there for everyone the best I can, but I need to learn how to make my own space to breathe and step back.

    I feel like I’ve lost a lot of friends in this pandemic through stress and miscommunication. But I’ve gained many more. Its hard for me not to second guess my worth, my opinions, my presence in bigger groups. I’m working on it, I’m working on it.

    Deep breath.

    It’s going to be alright. I’m picking up pieces and I’m shaping them back together and sometimes they break apart again but I breathe and I am patient and I put them back together again. It’s going to be okay. I need to learn some things along the way. I need to learn how to be kinder to myself. How to be stronger for myself.

    So maybe you will see some of this develop. Maybe you wont. I don’t know what kind of process I will share with you. I know I’ve been distant but this year broke parts of me I am trying to figure out how to put back together again. I’ll be fine. Just give me time.

    Hoping for better, and hoping anyone reading this has a better year too.

  • 2020 Year Retrospective

    So 2020 has been a hell of a year. I would be lying if I said there weren’t as many “downs” as there were “ups” this time around, but a lot has happened and I’m starting to feel an urge to take things down, make a record going forward. I think most of these little blog posts are going to wind up more of a monthly-type deal. I like to envision a pattern going forward but I don’t always keep to my promises and I don’t want this to become a chore.

    This will be what it will be, and I am learning to be okay with the fact that my life is not predictable and learning to enjoy that part of it.

    And learning to stop putting so much pressure on myself, create a much more normal image of this unattainable “perfection” I keep trying to chase. This year taught me a lot about slowing down in many ways and about taking in the journey for everything it throws at me.

    This year threw a lot at me and my partner and, some of it we are both struggling to regain our footing from.

    January — This month, feels like… honestly a lifetime ago. It’s hard to imagine there were actual months this year that were pre-COVID for us. We were gearing up to launch a Kickstarter for the next volume of our comic series (Paint The Town Red), we were bright-eyed and bushy tailed for a year’s worth of new projects, we had five crowdfunding campaigns planned this year, can you imagine? Five! I was even going to the gym regularly with a personal promise to buff UP; a convention schedule lined up that was, admittedly, going to be a lot more lax this year; gearing up for (maybe) another tattoo; a trip…

    February — We launch Paint The Town Red Volume 2 on Kickstarter, the campaign is a mess, frankly. Despite our preparations, the new goal, the steeper climb, we barely make it kicking and screaming across the thresh-hold to make our goal. I, honestly, don’t know how we managed it. We certainly wouldn’t have without the help of our friends pushing it with us and cheering us on. We stumble into victory and the reward is our first vacation in years.

    March — First week we went on a cruise vacation, COVID was just becoming a household name, most were not sure what its cause and effects were, and it was just starting to become more wide-spread. We came home to a 14-day quarantine… that would honestly turn into social distancing which would last the rest of the year. We wound up moving out of our tiny 3 & 1/2 and into my parent’s house for the sake of sanity and the knowledge we were going to move into another apartment by June. We spend the rest of this month in limbo, playing games, learning how to live in a household with several other adults, adjust to schedules, laugh it off, have impassioned & panicked conversations about money and the future as infection and death tolls only get worse. We celebrate my partner’s birthday laughing about how we’ll have to have a celebration twice as big for her next year.

    April — If we weren’t in lock-down by now (pretty sure most of March was locked-down for us) we certainly were now. Numbers spike higher, new cases are revealed, things on the COVID-front are reaching terrifying scales as the situation, honestly, really starts to hit. Most big events have cancelled or are about to cancel. We’re living with my parents still, I’m filming small videos of quiet scenes on our walks around the neighbourhood which has really nice natural scenery. The end of this month we start renovating the new apartment so that its ready to move into in June. We visit the old apartment to grab a few more things, feeling a bit bittersweet about the fact that we will be leaving it without living in it and making those last memories before we leave it behind. I take videos of the space as a keepsake even when most of it has been packed away already.

    My partner gets some horrible news from home, not long after the news piles on higher. Its a very hard few weeks, months but we pick up our feet anyway and keep moving forward.

    May — This is a madness month. We scramble to finish the final touches on the apartment, we move our stuff out of the hold place, family is generous and sweet and helps us move into the new place. I scramble to set up my accounting…. of which hasn’t been completed since the beginning of the year, I vow to never do this again, future me? Don’t let this slide, you suffered many tears and horrible math-calculations and it was genuinely Not Worth It.

    June — We move in halfway through the month, officially, when our appliances arrive, we crash into a new routine and find that it’s hard to sleep in the eerie quiet of a new place when you got used to several months of living with four other people in a house with three cats… So we, maybe start looking into adopting our own…

    July — We re-launch our business, the shop re-opens, we are slowly shifting back into a routine. We lose a lot of friends to an argument this month, lose more to situations outside our control. Its a tumultuous time but one good thing comes of it: I have an interview with Montreal Pride for August, it goes swimmingly well. The host asks me what I’m going to do when the interview is over and I make him laugh when I say we’re about to adopt two kittens.

    We adopt twin boys we name Pepper & Ghost and … they are only 18 months. It’s… a hell of an adjustment to the new routine, these boys are a couple of handfuls… especially when they get more comfortable. Pepper is a menace and a pest and for several days … weeks… we lose … a lot of sleep. Ghost is quiet and shy and reserved, but slowly we gain both their trust and they adjust to a new routine we set for them.

    August — Happy birthday to me, its been months and while COVID is still a threat the numbers have become reasonable during the summer months. Malls have re-opened but everywhere we go we are expected to wear masks for our protection and the protection of others around us (good). I’m in the process of fulfilling Myth Retold and getting Iphigenia ready to print. My partner is a sweetheart and offers to take the burden of illustrating them for me.

    September — I get copies of Iphigenia, they are gorgeous, I put in Medusa for print, we fulfill Myth Retold (all but Atalanta), fulfillment goes up until October. Mom has to go back to work in schools, nothing feels really safe about this process, everyone is weary. We meet up with friends for a social distancing pick-nick where we get to see each other face to face after months of not seeing any of our friends. Its very welcome, we laugh a lot and talk and walk until the sun goes down. Its freezing that night, we walk home shivering our asses off but it’s absolutely worth it. We promise, if numbers provide, we will meet up in October–

    October — Montreal becomes a red-zone, there’s no visits and no travel permitted between zones. We turn to voice chat with friends. As cases get worse we stop visiting my parents for a few weekends and keep up through social distancing as they finalize touches on my sister’s apartment in the basement. Our shop gains traction, Myth Retold books sell like hotcakes as a few Greek Mythology-themed games, shows, etc drop all at once?? We make a last-minute decision to launch an Underworld-Themed Greek Mythology pin Kickstarter.

    November — This Kickstarter hits new records for us. We are floored and stunned and shocked and nearly in tears. My partner gets paid for a big contract, we are the most financially stable we have been since we started our business heading into the holiday season. (For future’s sake… this is also the same month Destiel became canon in Supernatural before being sent to super hell the same week Trump was voted out of office so…. November was a wild ride this year). I tried NaNoWriMo but, understandably got extremely distracted. My sister moves in officially and we help her do so.

    December — Everyone spends the holidays in isolation, because my sister lives in the same building we spend our Christmas with her, via drinking games to Kingdom Hearts on the 24th to brunch on the 25th and a final Turkey dinner delivered by my lovely family <3

    I type this after kissing my partner at midnight for the new year and Pepper sleeps at the end of the bed soundly. And I’m feeling maybe a tinge more optimistic for the brand new year.

    Cheers everyone <3

    H

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