I haven't uploaded a journal in a while so I figured I would just give a little update.

This year has been one of resetting. For the longest time I've felt comfy and secure, like I knew my place and felt safe existing in it. Now, at the end of this year, that's all gone. I won't go into specifics, but I've had friends I found comfort in, the place I've called home for five years, among other things stripped away from me. At the moment, I'm on autopilot, I keep going because I have to and a lot of things that brought me security and joy are gone and I'm not handling it well at all. I feel like in losing all that stuff, I've lost myself. I'm just pretending to be how "Feral" is while underneath I just don't want to do it. I'll live, I'll get over it, but I feel like I'm occupying space where I'm a burden, or not welcome and that feeling is enough to make me sick some days.

Part of that is deciding my place in this community. It's no secret I've been here for a long time, not as long as some, but enough. I've done my fair share of wrong, and I'll admit my wrongs and right them any time. I've never claimed to be perfect, but from the bottom of my heart I have been and will continue to try to be better. I don't know what to do exactly.

I feel like I should have took a break and maybe made another account to leave the early years of my involvement behind? Sometimes I still think about it. I can't shake the feeling that I have a reputation that's not kindly looked upon and it does influence a lot of things I do, or don't do. This community is the only place in the last 13 or so years of my life that I've felt welcome in and felt like I could actually be myself and be better, and maybe that's for the worst sometimes. I find a lot of comfort here, and maybe I shouldn't. I don't know. I do want to say though that if we've ever talked, shared art or anything of the like, if you've accepted me into a space and treated me with respect, I do genuinely appreciate it and I value you deeply. I just ask that if I screw up, if I don't reply to a message or miss something, if we talk on a day and I don't sound as happy or like I'm all there, that you please give me grace. I'm trying to get back, I don't know if its possible but I'm trying. If there's one place or group of people I want to be good for, it's here.

I hope you all didn't mind the transparency whoever ends up reading this, it's been bothering me that I can't act like my usual self because of all this shit going on and I felt an explanation was appropriate. I'm trying 💙