P.S. (this project isn’t for clout but rather for people who genuinely want to listen to my voice, people that have been following my journey throughout my scratching years) As a people, we all grow and a big chunk of that process is loss, mistakes, discipline, and self discovery. When I first started out scratch I believed in myself. (Much more than I probably should’ve at the time) I was very active posting 1-4 projects a week, scratch was basically my life. I would wake up, do schoolwork, eat, scratch, shower, sleep, repeat. Then, I went back to public school, I made new friends, found new hobbies, and found new interests. I would still post a lot on scratch, this had a very little affect on me then, than it does now. Skip a little bit, I lost one of my friends, causing me to spiral. I still posted during that time I should’ve taken to heal. Eventually I took a forced break due a few more deaths pushing me over towards more burnout, and lack of motivation. Later that year, I returned to online schooling, causing me to not really keep up with my old friends, so I made new friends at this school. I won’t say much about it, but I learned a little too late that they were very toxic people that I should’ve avoided but innocent me thirsty for friendship couldn’t see the signs and ignored every warning I was given causing a deep wound that affected me for a while. After that I didn’t touch or even think about scratch at all. During that time of extreme hurt from my ex friend group, few of my friends sudden deaths, it seemed I had to nothing left besides a whole lotta homework and beloved scratch. But even scratch seemed so uninteresting to me. I took a break from almost everything, just let myself rot on my bed. Until one day, I decided to check my phone. My friends from public school were spamming me, asking if we could all meet up. Why not? We met up, had amazing conversations and clicked again. After that, we all started talking a lot again increasing our bonds even more. Enough for me to spill and vent out everything that was blocking my path. Everything felt so light and easy after that. On summer break, I felt very scared, a few of my other online classmates were inviting me to join their friend group. After discussing it with my other friends I had agreed. They encouraged me to try and make more friends even if it had hurt the first time. We started off slowly, talking about school, and our shared interest of anime. Then we slowly started to spill more sensitive things, which is when I had realized that we had become good friends, and I wasn’t going to get hurt again. A little while later I took notice of a quiet member of the group. I started reaching out to them more, making sure they were included. Since they were so quiet. Then I had went on a vacation for a week without any way of contact. When I had come back, said shy friend was the first to reach out to me. Venting about how they felt that I was the only one acknowledging that they existed even when they had been one of the original members of that group. After I had heard this I made a promise to include them in everything. Then school started up again. (For them I didn’t start classes until September, they started in august.) They weren’t able to talk as much. Except for said shy friend. We started spending almost every day together growing pretty close to where we were sharing secrets. That’s when they had become my guardian in a way. When there was someone who had made me uncomfortable they would take care of it. They saved me from another toxic friendship, telling me that they seemed a little off, then shielded me when that person tried yelling at me over losing a game. Which raised my trust in them. They had told me about a specific girl in our class that was targeting him. (b/h) Which I had taken care of. After that we made a vow to protect each other from people that would try to bring us down. This person now knows more about me than my siblings do. One day I started to notice that I started to get a small crush on this person which had made it really hard for me to be their friend. I started telling some of my closer friends about my feelings which helped a lot. I was mid breakdown on call with one of my friends when my brother randomly said “Don’t tell him I told you but (friend) has a crush on you.” Me and the friend I was on call with just stared at each other (OMGOMG) that same day I spammed friend until they replied. Hey I have something to tell you I’m really nervous. I was hovering over that send button “you can do it!” (I’m pretty sure he already knew what I was gonna say.) “I like you” after what seemed like an eternity of typing because I was pretty sure he was doing a happy dance on the other side he replied. “Well… me too” now holding each other's biggest secret of all. He’s who inspired me to start scratching again If you’ve read this far, you deserve to know my new identity.
Summary in case if you are too lazy to read: Life is hard, and after going through many trials and almost quitting scratch altogether, I was reminded that I’m doing this for me and nobody else.
