Crismsas

With the year winding towards a close I had a couple days to actually sit still and process just what a blur it really was.

Usually by this time of the year I'm burnt out on it's mere existence and I'm ready to hit the metaphorical reset button on the whole thing.  I start sending bribes to the new year in hopes that it won't lose it's mind completely and be a raging cyclone of misery that it's predecessor was.

But this time around I feel oddly renewed.  Like a reset button has been hit.  Don't get me wrong: this year has been one of the worst of my life.  Losing my father in January, the chaos that ensues afterward, and losing several people who were family and friends quite suddenly to various maladies left me stumbling for a proportionate chunk of the last 365.  

At the same time it was a year of shaking the earth free.  It was the most upheaval I've ever had in my days on this planet, and while they were filled with stress and 'busy', especially when it came to selling, clearing out, and moving from a house that had nearly 70 years of 'things' in it.  But it let me learn a lot as well.

I have been more regular with my therapy sessions, I have gained new perspectives that just two years ago I wouldn't even have been able to handle.  I've dealt through grief that felt like wading through a winding trail of molasses at times.  I've dealt with coming to terms with things in a healthy manner and I've even dealt with accepting joy that I feel now, though I still need to work on crushing the narrative of guilt that sometimes accompanies it.

I've seen so many people struggle.  People I care about, people who simply did their best and what they could, but life still seemed to roll over them.  I wished I could have done more to help everyone.

The year also felt like it's flown by. 

We don't have any snow on the ground here, which is incredibly rare for where I live.  The seasons seemed to pause at late October and haven't moved forward since.  I hadn't realize how much that can screw with one's sense of 'time' either.  It took people mentioning it several times to remind me that it's actually Christmas season.  My sense of time's progression is missing a very big landmark when the temperatures outside are above freezing most days (even WARM on some) and there just isn't any snow in sight.

And now here I sit on Christmas eve day.  I realized that I haven't made a post since the 30th of November, which I'm very sorry for.  I have actually been working on art and have made progress on it, but this month it looks like much of that art will be posted nearer to the end of the month that sporadically throughout.

In part, it's due to my having to re-learn a lot of artistic function that I had put on hold for something like 2 months.  When I returned to the current painting I literally had to sit there and pick apart the 'code' that I used to create it, in a manner of speaking.  I had to relearn what colours I was using, what layers had drawn on them, and what my mindset was when I was even working on the piece.  It's a little like writing a novel, walking away from it for months on end, and returning only to realize you were dead in the middle of a dramatic scene, but had to go back a few chapters to figure out exactly what the motivations and ideas were that lead up to the scene.

Sketchwork took me a little longer, as I forgot a fair bit of the 'process' and muscle memory I used.  It happens when you don't practice for an extended period of time.  Strangely, the opposite was true with the paintings.  While it took a while to figure out 'what chapter' I was on with them, It was merely a process of  going layer by layer and picking colour by colour again.

The next painting I'll be sharing should be quite soon.  Definitely before the end of the month.  It will be a commissioned work, but it's a two-birds situation as I finish it up, and post it here for folks to enjoy as well.  The sketches, however,  range from equines, wolves, fantasy characters and even a lioness.

I've also been afforded time to get back into both 'fantasy' as a genre, and as a TTRPG (later on, I hope).  Which of course is going to mean a lot more work along those lines as it always lit a fire under me.  

The reset button has been hit, and it's a very pleasant feeling.  The very long, very painful year is over, but I can't be upset about how things went.  Death is a part of life.  My father has peace from a very long struggle with his health.  I'm settled into my new home.  And I adore it.  While it's hard to see silver linings in loss, and they aren't always present, I'm choosing to see this as a chance of renewal.  

I'm choosing to love where I am.

I fully acknowledge that I'm very lucky to be where I am right now.  I don't mean just physically, but as a whole being.  The fact that my routine of making craft-coffee in the mornings, bringing it to the office that is only feet from my kitchen, and working on nude fantasy horses is indeed indulgent.  I don't need to qualify or justify being able to do this by stating that I 'worked to get here'.  Hard work isn't a measure of a person's life.  But it is something I had reached towards and am lucky I was able to grab onto it.

I want to thank all of you.  Every one of you, who have been along for the journey so far.  Not just in the monetary sense, but in ever aspect.  Those who reached out to say hello.  Those who gave condolences, and those who gave congratulations.   I try to share at least my creative side as far and wide as I can, and while I don't think I'm owed a single view of it, many people do, and that's frankly amazing to think about.

I should have some art-goodies to put out soon.  I wished that I had been able to get them out before Christmas rather than after, but I legitimately lost track of where we were in the year.  I can't believe that I actually miss snow.

I am so looking forward to the future.  I'm excited again.  I have a plan, but I also can't say exactly what might happen down the line.  But I'll try to meet it with either determination or open arms.

I hope you all have a happy Christmas, and the rest of the year treats you gently if not kindly.  Here's to a 2024 where the world isn't on fire.

Back to gift-wrapping onions.

-T.J.