4.Jan.25: The Fate of Things.

It's been wayyy too long since I wrote one of these.

It's been way too long since a lot of anything happened on here, really. And I apologize for that. Unfortunately I can't promise to rectify that any time soon.

Its not because my interest or love for this has gone anywhere, because it hasn't. I have so many ideas sitting in a notebook, new layouts, new pages/shrines, I even have drafts of several short stories I want to publish onto here! There's so much I want to do, but I just can't. Not right now at least.

When I made this website, I was fresh to college. I was lonely. I didn't have much going for me, other than empty time. I made this website to express all the things I couldn't, and to fill the dead air in my life. It was easy to update regularly and intensely when there was nothing else to do.
But, 3 years later, things have changed. For better or for worse, I became more active on campus, earning myself a spot on a club exec board, organizing large events, and attending out-of-state networking conferences. I've progressed in my major, as of right now I've completed all but one of my gen-eds and only have a handful of program courses left. Five Classes last semester, with the heavy responsibility of managing part of a large club... All of this on top of the endless waves of social warfare I've had to endure...

I just haven't had time or energy to devote to this website. Or to any kind of artistic outlet for that matter-- the most i've drawn in the past six months are tiny doodles of sonic and shadow in the margins of various notes and assignments.
I don't want to stay this inactive forever. Or only popping in to try and tweak an issue just to disappear again for another 3 months. I want to update more. But i honestly have no idea when, that will happen. Even though the semester is over and i am technically on winter break, things still don't let up. I've been a sick dog for the past 3 weeks (yup, sick through christmas and new years), and I have to work during the break. Then break is over, and I'm back into the grind, and I'm absent for god knows how long again.

I feel like I am overestimating my absence, but I still feel bad. If not for making people wait, then for letting my poor corner of the internet get all dusty and abandoned.
I wish I could end this with the promise of another update around the corner, but, you know. So thanks for reading this far, and I promise: even if its months in between I'm never abandoning this website. At least not without a coded-in goodbye involved.

Until next time.

-Leo

15.Jan.24: Another Lap Around the Sun

wow I haven't updated my blog since last year! ahaha! ahhhhhh.

Happy beladed new year to everyone! also, as of posting this, it's my birthday!!

I am officially 21 now. My engine's been running for two whole decades, and then some. crazy huh?

To be honest, I am not as lucky as i was last year around my birthday. I have had a very stressful, depressing, and overall negative start to this year. I was hoping the tide would turn before now, but you can't really control these kinds of things. Even now, pn the actual day of my birthday, i can not celebrate or feel good about myself in good conscious. But for my own sake I will have to move on and try to not think about it too much. It's scary being 21 anyway!

If i had to summarize 2023 in one phrase: Testing waters. I did a lot of new stuff in this year. I reignighted old friendships, went to events, overall i ventured out of my comfort zone... not incredibly far, but far enough. It wasn't stress free, i had plenty of moments of falter and even retreated in. It could have been better... but i tried.

And if I were to manifest my hopes for 2024, I would say... branching out. I would like to step out of my den again, and try even more things than last year. But most importantly I would like to stand firm in my plans. I have a habit of shutting down in fear, and I end up regreting it each time. This year, I want to see my plans through to the end, if possible. It's going to be a tough process, But i know it will help me in the long run.

I also want to get a job... and my license before the end of the year. i already have to renew my permit. I just want to be done with that chapter of my life and yet it sticks with me.

As things get rougher in my day to day life, this website ends up becoming dusty and untouched for weeks at a time. I gotta apologize for that. I love this site, I will never forget about it. But I'd rather update when I have the time to be careful and deliberate with what I had. Like a full blog post, or adding a tested and true shrine page or something. i think it makes it harder to be consistent but ahh.... I dunno. I guess an additional goal of the year is to update my website more!

I hope everyone reading this has started off their year in better shape than me. Thanks for still sticking around! I'm sharing a slice of computer cake with you all.

-Leo

16.Oct.23: Undiagnosed Nightmare

well...
how do people do it?

how do they go about being undiagnosed. how do they still get all the help they need, how do they know how to actually treat themselves? how do they know for sure?

I'm falling deeper and deeper into bad places. school stress, club demands, poor neighborhood. I'm riled up and overloaded with so much. it's making me shiver and gnaw at toothpicks til I fray the fibers. I'm spending too much time playing nothing but splatoon and doom (I love the games, but there's a point where I play not for thr fun but because it's the only outlet I have...).

just last night, I sat in the dark of my room and listened to hill act 1.gym on repeat for an hour as I sat still, picking furiously at my skin because nothing felt right... I'm exhausted.

I've been told my people I'm autistic. it feels like it fits, I've done weeks, months worth of research into it, and many things I've read fit and apply to me. but there's an aspect in me that's too scared to fully own it... what if I'm lying to myself? what if it's not autism and I'm just. "wrong"? what if owning it does nothing to help, and only separates me from my peers even more? I want help. I want to get advice. but without a doctors approval on my state of mental being I feel like I don't deserve it.
like I've got to earn it?

I've been trying my best to cope with it all. Making fun excuses as to why things don't click for me, why i can't do things right by the standards of everybody. Certain media has been helping me readjust from a personal standpoint... but Im still struggling socially and in school. making myself comfrtable can only do so much to fix failing grades and a severe lack of relationships in my life. As i type, when this goes up, I'll have to sit through a class that makes me so agitated I've got to fight to not get up and walk out.

I don't know who to go to. therapy is a luxury I can't afford. I don't know who I can talk to about this at my college... I just feel so alone. So damn alone that I'm writing about it here. nobody really reads these, I know it. nobody reads anything I put online, it's a neverending cycle of me shouting into the void. but there's still the thin, thin possibility that somebody has advice. as much as it'll hurt me to hold onto that hope, I will. Will things get better? I don't know.

-Leo

29.Aug.23: Death of an Artist

Cool, now that the first post is out of the way, I can post the mucky stuff.

We are gathered here to mourn the loss of a great, creative soul: mine.

I phrase it as a joke, but there's a more serious point to this all. As i've grown up, and life stopped being easy, my art abilities have suffered immensely. I was a known creative and artsy person for a large chunk of my life. Id paint, draw, sculpt, play guitar+bass, make paper dolls... while i enjoyed every moment of it, I cant lie and say i dreaded its place as a label in my life. because as my pretty shell began to molt off and my poor mental state became more and more apparent, i couldn't create like i used to. I was too tired to draw, too fatigued to come up with ideas for stories, too misty-eyed with self loathing to even feel like it was worth it to try anymore. As the gaps in my artsy machine grew, so did the disapproving comments from people. You know the ones; "you used to be so...", why don't you do that anymore..." "you've gotten so...", so on and so forth.
My identity and value as a good friend/kid/student was all propped up on whether or not i could do art-stuff. It ruined me.

I've gotten somewhat better though. But only a little. I feel a bit better about not doing all these things like i used to, but i very often look back at my old pieces and feel a sort of envy towards myself. I feel sick looking back at my old drawings and reading my old stories. I feel cold and hollow and awful when i think back at how good I used to be, and how I'm nothing like that anymore. But this is where I've taught myself better. Even though I was good back then, I didn't know what I knwo now. Like, yeah, sure I could play the guitar back then, but now I can code. I painted back then, now I emulate games and hack 3ds's for my friends at college. I grew. And even though my mental health still makes it hard to do a lot, I've been forced to realize my lack of action doesn't make me a bad person. I need to let myself take a break when it gets hard anyway... If not a literal one then an emotional one. Cut myself some slack as they say.

I think I lost the point i was trying to make with this. Anyway, I'm trying hard to learn that my abilities, whether they've decayed or not, is NOT what defines me. It's what i do with what I got. Even with website stuff, I look at others and fear my identity as a webmaster is not earned because I don't have all the features of another site. but that's not the point! Its what im doing with what i've got, and what I've made by hand all by myself, that's what counts!

I know thing's are going to get worse for me before they get better. And this is something I know will prove to be helpful for future leo, and I'm sure it'll be somewhat comforting for others. I think. Im not too sure.

So yeah. RIP my old, creative soul and happy non-birthday to the wiser, techy, and just-as-artsy offspring it left in the world.

-Leo

23.Jul.23: Whats What

New blog layout. It's a bit dark and grim, but thats the result of a sad case: It's the remnants of an idea I couldn't bring to life.

I originally made this layout for an interactive story idea i had. Different blogs would belong to different characters, and you'd be able to follow a story from their seperate points of view. There would have been hidden entries and a lot of fun arg-like elements to it. It was a cool idea, but life had to happen and remind me that i am Not That Guy and never will be. So instead of trashing all this hard work, I'm reviving it as my own blog.
I made three of them; one is being used for my sketchbook area, and this is being used for my blog.

BUT on a lighter note, I'll start off this first entry with the good things i did this summer. I went to my first pride parade! It was hot, and gross feeling, but it was very very fun. I went with my friend, we didn't take many photos of things but we watched a few drag performances, some musical performances, got some free pride flags. We also spent some time in a barnes and noble to escape the heat. It made me feel a kind of hope i hadn't felt in a very, very long time. Things have been desolate. Both in a broad, political way, and in a personal,"me" kind of way. I really needed it; it was a reminder that theres more to what Im suffering through in my bubble. I just need to escape it, somehow.

Anyway, I also went to my second ever wrestling show. This time it was Monday Night Raw; it was tons of fun and I ended up losing my voice because of how loud i was cheering. Normally at home I get bored by the third hour, but i was so excited for everything happening that night. I arrived home well after midnight and couldnt sleep!

I ended up missing out on my state convention this year sadly. money was tight, and i couldnt risk it. I normally go every year, so it was a major blow to sit out... Sure, theres always next year i guess.

-Leo