(no subject)
26: so far, feels about like 25.
Still a hard worker. Still working hard rather than smart, honestly, but I've been getting better at that. Schedules help. Keeping track of how long work actually takes me helps. Thinking before I jump into a project helps amazingly.
I'm letting go of the idea that I have to go to an extreme to get any attention; I'm getting okay with the idea of not getting attention. I'm learning to work with my strengths and joys - hard work, healthy work, good homemade food and a clean home and space to talk in, a sideways sense of humor that's not always there when I want it, pragmatic and and creative and simple solutions - instead of focusing on what other people do better - interact with and observe other people, organize, advertise, entertain.
I went through a spot of seasonal depression this winter. I'm proud of myself: I promptly got help, saw a therapist, and managed to stay in touch with friends, keep eating and sleeping on a fairly regular schedule, and turn in my work mostly on time. Coming out of it, I feel like I've learned some important strategies for keeping myself on track, organizing my time, holding myself together, and not beating myself up for what I'm not. I feel like maybe I'm starting to pull together into the sort of adult I want to be: adventurous but practical, calm, and competent at a vast number of interesting things. There's lots of time for me to learn all the interesting things I want to be good at, and slowly, clumsily, I WILL learn to be empathetic, forgiving, and nonjudgemental... maybe even funny.
I'm engaged to a good man. A wonderful man, even. Since Christmas, in fact, but we're waiting until I'm out of college and have supported myself for a while to get married. Ian's kind of amazing. I really don't talk about him enough. Observant, tactful, quirky, appreciative, interesting, independent, and interested in cool things... and I'm starting to believe that yeah, I provide enough to keep him happy, too. We'll see how it works out. I think we've talked about the really important stuff, and will keep talking about it. I'm a bit more aware of some of the pitfalls I've hit in other close relationships. Living with my housemate Dean has made me painfully aware of how seldom my observations of other people correspond with reality, and how much I miss, but possibly when working with more familiar types my accuracy will be a little better.
He runs a glorious D&D campaign for me and my friends here. We've missed a couple D&D games lately due to the rest of the party's stress, and I've been pretty spaced on our dates because of work, but that should get a lot better once classes are out.
I've been drawing more than I ever have in my life, I think, trying a lot of new approaches because my teachers tell me to. It makes me even more eager to draw more. I'm still worried about advertising myself, but next year I'll be looking into internships, and there'll be some professional practices classes... and I'm starting to think that what I want is possibly scientific illustration or even animation and storyboarding, which have better chances of being steady gigs AND providing the intellectual challenges I like.
Currently I'm working on a large animation project, which is going well, a bunch of ink illustrations for Abbie, which are lovely, a cute design project, and a style meme/challenge, which is going to be spectacular and which is helping me explore facets of a character who's changed a lot since I came up with him at 16. Oh - and some watercolors, which will hopefully help me develop a sense of what colors are important in conveying a setting.
It's raining a little, and I'm sitting around in my pajamas working on what I love, with company on the computer. Life is good.