Boundary.

And here we are at the boundary of the old year, awaiting the moments to cross into the new.

2022 was, without any hyperbole, the worst year I've ever experienced.  Family and friends struggled while the world was on fire.  It was the year my father's health decided on it's final decline.  It was a year where I had at least three nervous breakdowns that I didn't even know were nervous breakdowns until a nurse essentially said "What the f**k?  You realize that's basically a nervous breakdown right?"

I learned something new.

The last six months in particular are a bit of a blur.  I remember having only a week or so in autumn where I was feeling the energy that I normally got from the season.  The rest seems to have scrambled past and out of order.  Frantic days where I literally couldn't remember dates and what day it was.  

This is on top of seeing so many people I care about going through their own meatgrinders.  Seeing heartbreak, seeing loss, but at times even seeing a little triumph.  We are all still here.  We made it.  We're smoldering and all have a metaphorical thousand-yard stare, but we're still here.

Artistically the year didn't go quite to plan.  I was hoping to have already started the still untitled 'Cinders' comic and even be onto volume 2 by now.  I had hoped to have started taking on commissions as well and be able to offer them on a semi-regular basis.  And I definitely had hoped to get more 'spook month' images done at the time.

On a family note the year is ending quite sadly.  My father was supposed to have been in long term care, but his health deteriorated at a frankly stunning rate when he was brought to the hospital.  In just three weeks it went from him getting an 'apartment at long care' to 'he's going to pass away very soon.'  

It definitely hit like a train the first couple of weeks.  This was expected, given his health was a nightmare of 'new symptoms' for the past couple of years.  But when the decision is made to just let him pass away comfortably it still feels like a nail in the chest.

He's held on for just over a week.

I don't expect him to last another.

So the new year is going to, quite literally, be a new path for me.  I won't need to make any resolutions because it's all going to be new whether I resolve to do it or not.  There's a chance I'll be moving within the year, as I need a smaller space than a 3 story house, and a bit of the extra income that comes from the sale.  I'm going to be furnishing a place in my own style again.  I'm going to be learning to bake things, learning to make traditions for myself, and learning to live as just one.

It will feel weird, not having someone to care for, to schedule for and to have routines for.  It still feels weird now to be honest.  But I'll adapt.  I'll have to care for myself, schedule for myself, and build routines for myself.  It's as simple as that.

I love my father with all my heart.  I'll never be able to pay him back for how hard he fought for the family.  But there are things I want to do differently than he did.  I don't want to live with the anger he had, or the mistrust of everything.  I understand why he had both, because of how he grew up, but I was lucky that I didn't grow up that way.

I will listen to my doctors when they give me medical advice.  My father, at times, didn't.  He put things off, kept avoiding things he medically needed, and it was only in the last few years that I learned just how much he kept to himself.  I could only scramble to shore up his health the best I could at that point.  The end was inevitable.

I will always keep his love of nature alive.  I love it too.  I will strive for kinder things, and peace.

I can only hope that 2023 is kinder to everyone.  I'm happy to see 2022 sink beneath it's hellish inky waters and disappear forever while maniacally cackling.  

I thank all of you who stuck around, who let me ramble, let me add little lines to the things in my head.  I honestly and always amazed that people like the strange little drawings I make, and the hope is that going forward I'll be able to do more of that.

Be safe.  You all survived, so please be safe, and have a happy new year.  Thank you all again for being along for this year's wild ride.

-T.J.