HIVVER|W1NTER|XEIΜΏΝ

Oh…. we’re in for a rough recap this year. I usually do a lil skim of the last-years retrospective because I like to write these in a similar voice/short & concise so I don’t dwell on the negatives too bad but… uh… well… this year, overall fucking sucked.

And I say this, knowing there WERE good moments, there are always good moments. There can’t NOT be in 365 days but the overall this year is that I fell into a lot of older bad habits from more depression-heavy stages of my life and I feel like I’m only now starting to get back on top of things.

Trends this year are: just bad relationship stuff w/ friends & fam, literally any time something was mailed to us this year we missed it or it was sent delayed, all of our social media traction got absolutely obliterated, conventions we’ve been doing for over a decade decided not to accept our apps, most apps we sent out for anything got rejected, one of our cats got really ill twice. (And this is just personal… never mind all of the stuff going on in the world adding a layer of stress to it all, the massive forest fires during the summer, the tornado threats hitting Montreal, trans rights being obliterated at every turn, the ongoing genocides in Palestine & Ukraine, covid levels rising & the illness getting more tenacious etc etc etc). Yikes. Dudes.

It’s been awful. I’ll be happy to see 2023 burn.

Lets do a breakdown. I’ll TRY not to be a bummer but you have been warned.

January — I admittedly need to start taking notes of things throughout the year I don’t remember MUCH of January because we did have a trip and that’s all I remember! We went to visit friends in Albany and hiked one of the Adirondacks and it was really lovely and gorgeous. I have a few photos from this post that I took during our hike! We ALSO sent Tas’ book, Lost Time in to print this month which was also quite exciting & then braced ourselves for the Long Wait.

February — February was a big work-month for us! We spent a lot of time organising and working around our first convention in MARCH which was insane. We had our noses to the grindstone, working on Augustine and PTTR V3 trying to get V3 done before the year-dealine in June!

March — ECCC baby! This was our VERY FIRST convention in the states! Okay well the last one I did was Vermont Comiccon in 20…15… I think?? It was a blast! We did pretty good though the trip itself was really expensive (west coast… get it together LOL). Folks were really sweet though! We came home from this and were immediately tossed into con prep for Calgary Expo in between working diligently on Augustine & PTTR V3!

April — We didn’t quiiite make the deadline to have Augustine or PTTR V3 on the table for Calgary Expo but that’s alright, we decided to take things at a better pace with Augustine and PTTR V3 being a couple big expenses this year both in time and money so we had been taking things easy, chipping away at things slowly…. until I broke my iPad at the con and had to take up emergency commissions to scramble.

May — We don’t talk about May. May was a lot of drama, a lot of miscommunication, a lot of angry feelings a lot of frustration about boundaries and changing certain traditions. May was red and angry like all the fires creating smoke that choked up most of the city into June. We did VanCAF & MCAF and if you approached me at either of these conventions and I was Out Of It…. well now you know… I was a mess, lol.

June — We squeeze out fulfillment for Paint The Town Red Volume 3 yahoo! Just barely managed to squeak it through. We decide here and now to take a break from the comic for the rest of the year, citing we’ll be back with a new volume in 2025 instead of 2024. We also send Augustine Chapter 1 into print! …… we also learn we did not get into one of our big major cons… (I’m still salty about it. I’m extremely stressed about signups this year);;

July — Montreal Comiccon time and not only do we get accosted by a tornado (Montreal doesn’t typically get those) but the two of us are hiking up the hill to the apartment in the insane weather conditions (we had to get home to our cats in case shit got worse) not to mention the storm pushed our Augustine shipments so I was stuck waiting all Friday for books (okay another weird trend this year is that anything we ordered for the business online would get here a day too late and upset our whole flow, not even due to our own bad timing just a lot of bad luck all around).

August — Lol. If we weren’t talking about May we’re also not talking about August. Not only did we not get Otak we didn’t get Pride… we didn’t get to table AND missed it entirely even with a friend visiting in from the states because the vets we brought our cat to get a check-up at, dicked us around enough drowning him in medication he didn’t need. I was lucky I trusted my gut and put a pause on all of his medication or he’d probably be dead due to how little he was eating. We didn’t make anything and lost even more and this month had me so stressed for money I didn’t even know what to do with myself, I didn’t even know which direction to take our social media. We weren’t even gonna get paid for the last part of Tas’ advance for another 2 months aaaaaaaaaaaa (shoutout to Tas’ parents who helped with vet bills;;;)
Happy birthday to me, lmao.

September — Stress!! More of it!! We got into SPX but the show is uhh well it’s been a bit falsely advertised for eons, we’re disappointed with the return. We barely scratch even which is not really helpful right now, all things considered. I’m still a ball of anxiety trying to figure out what to do about our business, where do we go from here?? We have Augusteenies and its… well its slow-going. It’s definitely not picking up like I was hoping it might (I didn’t figure gangbusters but yeesh story of my life here). Lots of weird feelings… family stuff got patched up in August… but its still weird. I’m still wrestling with feelings. It is what it is. I’m putting my head down and sprinting through Augusteenies and Augustine inks. We build up enough of a buffer to take off for the rest of the year.

October — I don’t even know where this month went but I spent a lot of time doing OCtobers and doodling for myself, playing a bunch of tabletop with friends. Tabletop and a few small friend groups this year were honestly my saving grace from going absolutely insane. We play a few games and take it easier than we have been all year. We sign up to a couple holiday shows in December.

November — Is a bit of a blur. I’m not really sure what we did this month. I was early buying up all my Christmas presents. The two of us took it a bit easier since we were accepted into 3 different markets and shows in December. We nervously talk a lot about what we want to do next year. We’re still undecided. We dip out of a group chat that was straining on my stress. Some of my family catches The New Covid TM and plans are shifted around, things get dicey again. I’m exhausted.

December — We did 3 markets and honestly did more than I was anticipating at all of them. Christmas is low-key this year. The two of us have had a rowdy year and wanted to make time for friends as much as we did for family. As I’m writing this we’re in the liminal-space in between Christmas & New Years and I still feel like I’m catching up, mentally with the year. We’re finishing up this year cat-sitting for a buddy and playing our new (used hehe) N64 my brother got us for Christmas and stewing in some old nostalgia playing Paper Mario. I’m feeling a bit better but still feeling quite beat up by the year.

Ough this year was rough and I’m making it a point to admit that it was rough and making it a point to write about how rough it was because I have a habit of swallowing those feelings and letting them fester and hurting myself over them. This was a bit cathartic & validating to write, not going to lie. Yeah. This year WAS a mess, look at all that shit!!

But this year DID bring a lot of good too. Lemme take a little moment to recap some of that here:

• TAS PUBLISHED A BOOK!!! WOW!! And I’ve got a published Inker credit and that feels wild still!
• WE RELEASED 2 MORE BOOKS?? (Augustine, Paint The Town Red Volume 3???)
• We launched a webtoon!
• I finally created and designed hats this year?? (It’s been on my to-do for eons)
• I put in a request for a name-change officially (fingers crossed this is made official in 2024!)
• We did our own record-breaking convention circuit at 9 shows in one year!
• We finished the first arc to our Starfinder game with the new group
• We FINISHED OUR FIRST TABLETOP GAME?? With our original Starfinder group!!
• I got a new tatt and thats always exciting >:)
• We’ve had a fantastic holiday run both on our main storefront & etsy this year!

So hey its not ALL bad, of course! I’m already someone who doesn’t super like to dwell on the doom & gloom. I’m already looking forward to 2024. I feel like this year is going to be a bit brighter for us and I’m putting that hope into the air in the hopes that the universe decides to act on it. I have a few big wish list things I’m working on and I’m not trying to go into the year expecting too much but you heard it here first, I’m beaming positive rays into the future. Catch them, future me!

Lets see though, before we jump forward at next year… last year I did set up some resolutions/new habits and I’m pretty proud of the way I’ve kept up with most of these especially this year:

1- Write more consistently (this wasn’t CONSISTENT but I did do a lot more writing this year so hey!)
2- Exercise more consistently (we struggled but did make a bigger effort this year & signed up to a closer gym to make it more feasible for 2024)
3- Always prioritise: breaks, rest & friends. (this is my favourite goal, I think I did pretty good this year despite a few setbacks. I spend a lot less time feeling stressed about a time crunch so this has to be working somehow!)
4- Practice a little bit more Illustration (don’t look at me, maybe one year I will finally succeed at this– tHOUGH i did do a lot of personal artwork that was outside my usual skillset–ie: images that are a lot more involved/fake screengrabs, a LOT more digital sketching.)
5- Get your hands dirty with some film photography & stop being so shy about it. (uhm….. well my mental spiral kinda tanked this one but I did almost fill my whole roll on my sprocket rocket…)

A secret bonus resolution that’s been at the back of my mind for a few years now was to dip away from using social media as a ‘time filler’ or falling into the habit of endlessly scrolling and feeling like ass/falling into discourse I’ve seen hundreds of times before. In some ways I really succeeded at doing this, I’ve killed both my private and personal public twitter accounts and have limited a lot more of my time from tumblr. Instagram has kinda replaced those as a time-sink, but over all I’ve put a lot more of my spare time into building and refining my website, our main Windy & Wallflower website and reading through other’s personal websites and blogs! Its been a nice new change!

I never take resolutions to heart that’s why they wind up being a bit more on the vague side and I’m certainly not beating myself up for anything that didn’t 100% hit the mark. I think I want to set a few really small more specific ones that have been floating around in my brain lately. A few things I’ve been meaning to try my hand at again.

For 2024 I’d like to

1. Pick a writing project & finish it. I have a few drafts that have been hovering around with nothing but my own fear standing in the way.
2. Finish one whole sketchbook. That’s right we’re going back to traditional baby (at least for fun).
3. Try a new art medium: lino-cutting, screen-printing, wood burning, puppet making. Something you spend time making for fun.
4. Read More. (Okay so we learned how to Take Breaks, lets use some of those breaks to get back into a hobby I used to love a LOT and stopped a bit more after University because this is a real self-care act for me and cannot be paired with a work-related task (drawing, editing, etc)
5. Pitch Something. I’ve been in my own way about this for one year too many. Its time to take the bull by the horns and get something out there.
6. BONUS — Make a very short solo-comic.

As always these are not locked in stone or anything, just a few personal goals that I’ve been feeling this year and want to pull into next year. Admittedly these are less… Resolutions but these are all hopefully a basis to replace some bad habits I built up this year into more productive (see: makes me happier) outcomes instead of just… needlessly scrolling platforms I don’t really need to BE on.

ANYWAY.

I want to end off this year with a new little segment. I’ve been playing a lot more games & watching a lot more movies and such. In the future I might be able to list more of what I’ve actually devoured vs honourable mentions. I just kind of thought of it now so I’m really going off of my memory and probably going to stick to honourable mentions but I’d like to take better notes going forward!

These are not in order of release or anything and some of these weren’t even released this year but this year’s when I devoured ’em so.

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TOP DOGS

These are my fave things across the board that I experienced this year. From any and all these categories.

• No Man’s Sky
• Citizen Sleeper
• This is How you Lose The Time War
• Steven Universe.
• Scavenger’s Reign
• Hilda
• Kintsugi Kid (on the new Fallout Boy Album..;;;; )
• Godzilla Minus One

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I could pick and poke at this latter list here for ages, so we’ll leave it here for now with (hopefully) a more detailed one next year.

See you all on the flipside~!

Cataloguing another year: 2022 in a line of extremely weird years. It’s, admittedly, hard to remember everything that happened earlier (like Jan-March). We’ve left a lot of the pandemic panic behind so this year was spent with a lot of weird navigating around different people’s comfort levels (and honestly my own comfort levels) in regards to covid and getting sick. Although there is still a cloud of anxiety around the illness it has lifted a lot this year for better or for worse.

All that aside though, I feel like getting to see my friends more has done absolute wonders for me personally. I made it a greater mission this year, to pull away from social media. To take spare time and moments of boredom and turn them into more productive* uses of my time.

* Productive less in the sense of work productivity and more in regards to just mental sanity, productivity, you know?

I spent more time writing little blog posts, keeping on top of my organisation, creating small personal projects for myself. Right now, I’m doing a one-picture-a-day every day this year since I’ve turned 30 (… gods, thirty), I’ve gotten a fantastic little film camera for the holidays from my amazing partner (who absolutely endorsed my photo hobby by also getting me a camera harness haha– whose the camera dad NOW–I’m sorry at all my friends I WILL be that person who stops to take pics… a bit more this year idk we’ll see maybe I need to start taking more walks and having more adventures out in the city during 2023)!

Okay, okay I’m getting ahead of myself. Point is. This was a pretty good year for me overall I think. I am… at least feeling like I’m in a more normal headspace now than I’ve felt since the pandemic began. I’m feeling less and less the obsessive addictive clutch of social media at my throat and I’m feeling a lot better for it. It’s been nice.

I feel like I’m waking up from a fog this year and I’m pretty excited to see what 2023 has in store.

But first, a little retrospective…

January — Ouf this is going so far back I honestly can barely remember it. This was off the cusp of a terrible 2021 (yes I skimmed my last year retrospective to have a little remember–) in which the Holidays were a bit of a mess. 2021 wasn’t a great year but new years always make me a bit more optimistic. We start the year off by shipping out some blankets and nail it in a weekend. We have some big plans for this new year and hope the backlash with Kickstarter last year doesn’t hit us too hard. Its fine. We’ll bounce back somehow we always do. We celebrate 6 years of dating ;v;/

February — Work work work! We generally spend winter months working on our projects, keeping our heads down. We hear a lot of talk of conventions. We sign up to a few of our own. We try not to run circles around ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ when it comes to COVID. We go to the gym. We try and keep busy to avoid the panic and fear. We continue to wear masks and do what we can to mitigate getting sick. We do a lot of workouts at home with our new gear.

March — We launch our first crowdfunding campaign for a deck of cards. It does well enough. We’re already starting to see some backlash and uncertainty when it comes to the platform but it still makes enough to help us with the final fulfillment of Prism Knights (the omnibus) and the hole the blankets left us in. We pay off our flights to make it to our first con. Celebrate a proper birthday for Tas finally. Things are also starting to look up a little more as the weather starts to shift with spring.

April — Our first Official Convention back… woof. Its a scary one. By this point QC still has a mask mandate up in full swing with talks to drop it only mid-to-end of May so heading out west to Calgary Expo was… terrifying to say the least. Masks had been off for some time out there, the folks are pretty vocal about it. It was a bit of a weird show. People aren’t sure what to make of masking vs not masking. Its also become a lot more strained of a place to vend… our work is really queer, this province has instated mandates making it pretty not too queer-friendly. Luckily the show does well for us. The air is tense but we survive it.

May — You’ll notice that this year we have about a new convention every month and the energy each of these takes occupies most of our planning life. This month is MCAF and its an outdoor show which is placed on St Denis street this year! In tangent with the warmer weather brightening our spirits, new booster shots being taken earlier in the year, this show goes much smoother, this month is spent with walks and spending time enjoying the sunshine we can as we full throttle into our preparations for a new webcomic… We spend a lot more time meeting up with friends. Its nice. Things feel different. Better.

June — TCAF time! At this point in the year flights are starting to become…. somewhat of a troublemaker for travellers, the influx of new travel and the lack of staff means that flights are delayed, cancelled etc. I’ll spare the rig-a-maroll but you can catch the long and short of it in my TCAF 2022 post. We also launch our next crowdfunding campaign! Wow! Kickstarter is…. really not doing us a solid here. Paint the Town Red Volume 3 really struggles to pull through on a bare minimum goal. We start really considering a new method of raising funds in the new year. But hey, by the skin of our teeth we make it and we’ve got a whole new Volume to work on!

July — The summer from this point on is an absolute blur. We do our usual Montreal Comiccon show and make more profit than I ever could have even considered possible at a local con Let Alone This One. We spend more time meeting up with friends and laughing until the late hours of the night and come home sore and tired and giddy. We also are hard at work planning our next webcomic, Tas is working feverishly on SanCirc to keep the updates going alongside the pencils to her graphic novel (coming Next Year!!) It’s one hell of a busy ride but its one that feels right for once. There’s a bit more of a normal settling in to this new routine. All this time the two of us continue to wear masks in enclosed public spaces… most Especially at conventions.

August — Exciting! Otakuthon is the last of our big gambit of shows. Somehow we’re even more successful here than we are at MTLCC. I get to meet friends I’ve been talking to online for the past year or so for the very first time this month. I turn thirty which is both terrifying and exciting. I’m trying to feel more and more comfortable with aging. We also celebrate 1 year engaged! Its a hot month but the summer’s been pretty mild all things considered! I spend all of my work time sprinting through the inks for Tas’ graphic novel. We also officially launch AUGUSTINE on Hiveworks! Our new collaborative webcomic!

September — You would think this is a more relaxed month but Tas spends a lot of it scrambling through the colours for her graphic novel. We work hard upkeeping our workload, somehow we have four comics going at once. Its pretty much mayhem at this point but we’re somehow managing the juggle (we’re um… promising ourselves a bit of a break come 2023 to at least finish up some of the stories we’re working on before we add a new one into the mix of things…). But we’re also fools and we run another crowdfunding campaign in the hopes to bring in some cash to tide us over proper for the holidays…. it uhh… also does not do as well as we hoped. Its a bit of a struggle but social media has been a massive heel lately and one of our main means of advertising our work (twitter) is not really doing so hot and really burning a hole in our pocket. We start talking a lot more heavily about re-configuring our priorities for 2023.

October — We make a small trip down to Maine and witness our friends get married! Its a sweet wedding. I get to see people I haven’t seen in years and its absolutely wonderful! We get home and spend the rest of October decompressing, meeting with friends over warm meals of soup and cheese. Halloween is thoroughly celebrated in our household. We upkeep our funny little juggling with one less comic in the mix. I spend most of this month inking Paint The Town Red.

November — The boys (our boys… our… cats…) turn 3! Happy birthday! These poor guys are pandemic babies so they struggle a little bit this year with our frequent trips and departures but Pepper is warming up to Ghost as a snuggle buddy a little bit more and most certainly making use of my lap every chance he gets. November slips through my fingers faster than I can say Boo. We show up for Expozine, and hey we actually got in without too much hassle this year which is a bonus.

December — Tas visits home for a week for the holidays and I hold down the fort that week. December is a bit of a ride of complicated feelings and uncertainty. Its the first time my family is getting together for Christmas in two years and a lot of them are… quite careless about covid (I know everyone is tired and I’ve had to bite my tongue a fair share of times to placate despite my discomfort). We run the gambit anyway. Family gatherings…. just get harder every year. Some years more than others certainly. This year we had a big fistfight break out (everything worked out in the end we stopped anyone from getting hurt too badly). Moments like these you become increasingly more aware of the generational divide. Its just… a lot. The most sour note this year was this. I guess its not exactly the worst the year could bring at least.

We’ve spent this last week of December taking it easy. The two of us are talking a lot about our goals and aspirations for the new year. We have a lot of plans but I know a lot of my personal goals for 2023 are extensions of my goals for 2022– maintaining a personal balance of work and rest as best as possible. Socialise more, and enjoy what I can.

BUT since we’re ending on a good note this year, here’s a small list of resolutions I have for myself (mostly so that I can look back on this next year and see how well I managed~)

A lot of my resolutions revolve making more consistent habits for myself:

1- Write more consistently (a little bit every work day if possible but no penalties if not of course)
2- Exercise more consistently (we did a lot better this year but if not Gym definitely at-home workouts)
3- Always prioritise: breaks, rest & friends. (this honestly kept me sane this year)
4- Practice a little bit more Illustration (maybe aim for 1 big illo project this year?)
5- Get your hands dirty with some film photography & stop being so shy about it.

I have a few more personal and project work goals to work out on my end but I don’t want to go into those in a public space like this haha. A lot of these are meant as loose encouragements vs Actual Guidelines. I used to be really hard on myself in terms of work output and projects and productivity and I’ve been trying to shirk that level of responsibility. My personal output has gotten better since allowing room for breaks. Living with chronic migraines means these shits can hit you anytime so being able to be flexible for it has helped a LOT mitigate the intensity of some attacks (and also actually diminished how frequently I get them bad enough I have to take my migraine meds). I’ve noticed a change a lot this year. I haven’t had to refill my prescription even once all of 2022 which is nuts!

All in all 2022 was pretty good to me. There were definitely a few rough patches of course. I feel like there are some personal things straining a lot with me lately as a result of setting up boundaries with people not used to me doing so. Its been hard but I’ve been feeling a lot better for it.

Here’s to an even brighter 2023. See you all on the other side ;>

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.