ijustthinkfrogsarecool

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

things have been going pretty good lately. i posted the first chapter of my new story to ao3 and it got so much activity right out of the gate that i felt really, genuinely happy as an artist for like... the first time? "i am happy because everyone loves me" type happy.

been trying to cling to that feeling when things feel uncertain in my life otherwise. my boss seems optimistic about securing our funding, but i still don't have much to do at work and it's making me a little nervous.

but it does genuinely feel good to be putting a smaller project together, completing it (i'm writing the last chapter now), and to get such a huge response with just the first chapter. feels weird to say something so good happened (especially when it's just, you know, internet numbers) but it's kind of what i was looking for for years and years with my webcomic and never found before.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

life's been crazy this last month!!! i went to england to visit my best friend for two weeks, came home and participated in a ton of fandom events, and also i'm trying to balance that with work tasks. i don't know if i'm doing a very good job of it, especially coming back and realizing i don't have any more energy than before, but i'm tryin!

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

i had to take a sick day off work yesterday, for my mental health. it was a good idea, i felt way less sick by the end of the day. but then of course mom called and told me she didn't get a room at the hotel and that she'd be staying at my place with me for the next week and a half, which upset my stomach all over again. i spent today at work mostly trying not to throw up.

but i got through it. i got all my tasks done and got the laundry and sweeping done before she gets here and i'm trying to relax for a few hours before the plane lands with her and dad and my uncle. they're getting in very late, way past my bedtime, so i'll have to either wait up or get up in the middle of the night to let her in to the building. i do also still have a very busy day at work tomorrow that i won't be able to rest for because i'll be getting mom settled.

just really frustrated. i really really really don't want to get sick right before my trip. but between the busy hellish work week, the lack of a weekend this weekend, and the busy hellish work week NEXT week, i'm just... ehhhh. not doing great.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

had a bit of a breakdown at work today, had to clock out early and just use some of my sick leave. i've felt miserable all night, even trying to stay productive and hang out with people and stuff. i think i'm burnt out and doing anything is exhausting myself further. but i can't not do things, in part because they need to get done but mostly because i get very restless.

maybe getting boba tomorrow will fix me. i've been getting a lot more small treats lately though. it seems to cheer me up a little bit.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

i remembered why writing these suddenly got so taxing that i didn't want to do it anymore! work exhausts me. i cried after our biweekly three-hour planning meeting. it used to be six hours long. three hours is still too much.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

yesterday work exhausted me. i'm trying to figure out how to pace myself to avoid burnout, but it seems like it happens no matter what i do. the eight hour days at the office just wear me out. at least at home i have all my snacks and i can make a nice lunch instead of packing something that fits in the lunchbox / having to prep all my meals for the week in advance unless i want a little sandwich. and don't even get me started on the haunted bathroom at the office. and when i work from home i can nap on my lunch break and get a little boost that way too. or pet the cats, or do the dishes for five minutes.

it seems like it doesn't affect my productivity that much as long as i'm careful and i stay very organized, which i've gotten much better at over the last few years (specifically working from home wise). i dunno. i get why i need to be in the office some days of the week but i'm literally the only person on the team who's there on mondays. i mean, i'm the only person on the team at all right now besides my supervisor and the head of the department, but, the office is even emptier on mondays. and we hold all our meetings over zoom anyway, even when the three of us ARE at the office.

it's just frustrating. i know i have it easy because i get to work from home at ALL, but like... i am recognizing how much more i enjoy it than going to the office when the office is empty anyway. how much more energy i have at the end of the day even though i work just as hard (or, i feel like i work just as hard).

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

today was my last day of pottery class. it was nice, fun, though i didn't really socialize as much as the people around me. it seemed like some of them knew each other, and several of them knew the instructor. i mostly kept my head down and made cups lol.

last night i plowed through and finished chapter 4 of this story i'm writing. it's not related to the comic, and i feel kinda bad that it's grabbed my enthusiasm and drained so much of it from the comic, but it does make me happy and it's a much smaller project. it'll be eight chapters, and then i need to polish them, and then i want to see how i'm feeling about the comic at that point, if i want to go back to focusing on it fully.

one downside of not keeping up with journaling for years is that i would have to Sit and Establish Context for any topic i want to write about if i want it to be followable.

i guess the short version is that i've been having a bit of a crisis about the comic. i still want to make it in that way where i NEED to create something, and it's still a story i want to tell, but the community / fandom it's part of is just... not good. i've lost so many friends in that group and the people coming in don't want to be part of a community, they just want to yell into a void at each other and they all feel lonely about it. it's not fun to post anymore.

this new community... it's fun! it's lively! people interact with each other and do art trades and events all the time! and people have been really polite when i introduce my story idea, even though it's only half done. it just feels like i have the opportunity to make friends maybe, if i can get through this wall of anxiety.

my feelings are complicated about the idea that my art is so wrapped up in my social life, but art has always been like... a means to connect with others, to me. and when i'm not connecting with others through it, it makes me sad.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

meeting new people is terrifying, even online, anymore. i leave comments on people's art and have to step away from the computer because i get so anxious it makes me nauseous. even when i know the community is super nice, even when i said something objectively nice and polite.

i've gotten really rusty at interacting with people even though i go to comics jam and drink and draw and i get on voice calls for writing club sometimes and i still go to social gatherings when invited. my social battery is measured in minutes. i feel like a neurotic prey animal when stuck with people one-on-one.

i just gotta do it more. i hate doing it lol. i'm slowly getting more comfortable around a single new person in this fandom after a really rocky start (on my end). trying to use that little bond as a base to ground myself when reaching out to others.

i want to go back to roller derby but i don't have a ride anymore.

the days are lonely. i fill them with art and writing. i get more out of practice with talking to people. the days get lonelier.

in a month i'll be visiting my best friend in england. it'll be the first time i've ever met him. i know i'll be very nervous, but i hope it doesn't hold me back. and i hope it helps me get back "into practice" a little bit.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

i got into outer wilds the last few weeks... it's such a good game. it's been a real highlight of my evenings after hard days at work / long sick days. thanksgiving break was a great opportunity to push ahead and finish it, so i could finally watch all those videos and fan comics i'd been stockpiling. very spooky game!! but facing many of my nightmare scenarios while my friends watched me dither around was cathartic i think.

that's all i got right now i think. the holidays are coming up, so i'll be traveling and scrambling to get gifts done as usual. i have a few sketches and thumbnails down for my secret santa... just gotta hop to it.

today i'm particularly tired. i've been sleeping 9-12 hours a day with these meds and i barely got like 5 last night. i've been running on caffeine and fumes, which sucks when i have 4-hour meetings at work and then tasks to do after that. i hope i can get restful sleep tonight, it's been hard with the health scares around my grandma and my cat wynnie.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

time always goes so fast. i blink and a year has passed. i kept my head down the whole time and just worked, like, nonstop.

i started going to a bunch of events... comics jam once a month, drink and draw at the park once a month (which was tonight). there's a very pretty woman who's also a regular and i'm working up the nerve to ask for her phone number.

i joined a roller derby team and strained a muscle so bad i've had to start physical therapy to un-strain it. i still go to the games and sit in the audience. i'm very much a baby giraffe on skates, i'm not even cleared to do contact drills or actually play derby lol, but it's fun and i've made a few friends. one of them even wants to get brunch this weekend.

the budget for my department got slashed by the university and the team had to lay off all my teammates. i have one new student under me and then it's just me, my supervisor, and my boss. it's been really busy trying to pull together enough work to get my paycheck.

the comic marches forward like a glacier. i've finished a huge lyric comic project for it, i want to post the whole thing for the anniversary in december. i think it'll be good. i hope people like it.

the cats are fine. little troublemakers, as always. wynnie is better behaved than she used to be. life is ok. just busy.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

today i had work as usual. i did some more repairs in my bathroom and it didn't go too bad. i also watched some tv and listened in on my friends' reading club.

i don't have a lot to say- every day feels packed with Routine Stuff that i do every day or every week. i have bad dreams, i'm always tired, i'm always busy. busy busy busy.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

today is my birthday!! i wanted to go on record and say that i am having a good day so far. i got up early and went on a long bike ride which i haven't done in many months, i got all my chores done, i helped a friend with their math homework, i talked to my gramma, i've been working on the comic, i played with the cats... i'm gonna go out for a nice dinner too in about an hour.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

i've been having a rough time the last few days.

it's like... how do i describe this. i left a big discord server last august, and one of my friends from that server just went through and removed herself from all the group chats we were in the other week. that dug all of the group chats back up and made it very real that i'm never going to speak to her again, or the other friend that left my comic server along with the group chats.

i realized that another friend blocked me recently and i don't know why. we haven't spoken in a while, and i tried to apologize, but he just brushed me off... and looking through our message history, i sent the first and last messages of the last half dozen conversations. i don't know why he thinks *i* left *him*.

and then of course the other day i saw that an ex-friend had gone through his blog and deleted everything he'd ever reblogged from me or made for me, or the things i'd made for him. like i was never there. just like my other crumbling relationships.

it's not that i miss any of these people... well, i do miss some of them. it's just putting a huge strain on my mental health lately to feel so... thrown away. every little thing feels like it sets me off- someone forgetting to thank me for doing them a favor, another person sounding nervous or uninterested when i talk to him, another person who tends to leave discord when something is wrong even if i didn't realize i'd *done* something wrong. i'm keenly aware that all of my friends are going to leave me at some point and there's nothing i can do about it. and it's a very heavy thought, makes it hard to connect with people while they're still here. i feel like no one can help me or reassure me and it's making it really difficult to try new things or meet new people or even make my normal art.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

i've been throwing myself into work at my job a little bit this last week. i feel like it helps pass the time. my friends in the group all seem kinda miserable too, but i'm not sure how to be there for them when all of us aren't online at the same time very much.

even in a group of like ten people i only feel close to three... maybe that's normal. i don't know what normal is.

i sound really depressed when i write these journal entries. i guess i am- i don't always feel terrible during the day at least. like... it's not all bad. i don't feel lonely in a stabbing, aching way the way i used to. it's more like well-defined points of heartbreak right now. in the meantime, i keep working on work, art. and i keep feeling so exhausted i can barely think outside of those "necessary" periods.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

i logged into facebook and saw that my gramma sent me an invite to the "middle aged grannies" group and it felt like a cruel punch line to everything i just said

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

i hate everything. i feel like i can't do anything right.

i always kind of assumed i would die alone, i'm not really worth people sticking around that long, but it's becoming harder and harder to live alone, with the friends around me disappearing one by one, and it feels like the only new people i can meet are scary and i don't know what they're going to do, i don't know what the long term consequences are going to be. none of my neighbors are my age, i feel like i'm taking care of more and more elderly people as i try to meet them instead of... being around people my age who have similar interests to me.

i'm so alone. i know i have like three friends, four, still around, i just... want to cry.

[ijustthinkfrogsarecool]

never mind my brain is screaming again