sorry for absence + life update

Instructions

fat chibi Gray will stare into your soul with his beady eyes as I give u this update anyway... just thought I'd say an extra "sorry" for my extreme silence on this site and in general for the huge gap between my art projects, which are basically the only things I even put here, oof. Kinda feels weird to remember how active I used to be here. There are some awesome people here and I love chatting with anyone who reaches out to me on my profile! However between other stuff I guess I just don't have the time or energy to maintain many social media sites with content and Scratch seems to be one of those (like Waterfall, Toyhouse etc.) that I just don't get around to uploading things for as much. Currently, my primary social media is Deviantart. It does make me sad that not all of my pals on here are able to get one, but I understand completely; I guess in the case of you not being able to go on the site, I apologize for how bad I can be at getting on to check messages and projects here- I mean no harm, my memory/focus and crap are just- not the best ack I would like to note, however, that I do use the Messaging Service That Begins with a D and ends with a D as well, and some might even say that it begins with "Dis" and ends with "cord". Im super sorry if this is confusing but apparently the "bad word detector" doesn't let you say it so that's the best I can do. I don't want to give out my acct in public on this site, but if you want to talk to me there, let me know in the comments and I'll find some discreet way of giving you my number- in the words of John Mulaney, I'll get in trouble, you won't anyway, regarding the life update. I guess you could say that the longer Covid has gone on + the life changes I've had going on lately and the generally tense atmosphere surrounding the election (I live in the US and we're electing a new president soon along with a bunch of other people), I've gotten progressively more stressed and unhappy in life. It sucks because before the pandemic hit, I'd actually been doing a really good job of managing myself mentally and keeping myself in check, but then all this stuff came along and kind of threw me for a massive loop and it's just been... getting progressively worse, LOL. I have to say I'm a lot less vocal about my mental state than I was when I was younger, especially on this site, because I feel like when I was younger I sort of just stressed everyone out unnecessarily and didn't really solve anything. I mean, venting every now and then is therapeutic and I still do it every now and then, but I guess I've just gotten more considerate about it? Or tried to, at least Anyway, one big thing that's different in my life lately is that I recently started college. I've been putting a large amount of my energy there, because I've set pretty high standards for myself and want to make sure that I don't blow it off or make any big mistakes; I also have a scholarship to worry about because they aren't giving me my money until I complete the semester and if I don't perform up to their standards, I won't get the compensation. This has me freaked out because I don't exactly know what those standards are, so I'm doing my best to get on the dean's list at least. Putting this much work into school has kind of drained my art motivation however; I'm a slow worker as I've found out and I also live at home still and do things like housework/errands/etc, so it usually takes me until something like 6pm at night to finish my day's tasks, and by then the last thing I want to do is sit down and focus on something else. I do art every now and then especially on slower days, but it's not as much as during the summer or even my high school days... which, to be honest, really worries me. I am majoring in visual arts, so part of my studies is art related, but I've been doing mostly school artwork and less for myself. I guess that's just life, but I just constantly worry I'm getting worse at my personal style and my digital cartooning as I expand my horizons like this. I'll probably figure out how to manage my workflow eventually, but as for now, it's definitely messing with my art output quite a bit, which is why I haven't posted a project in almost a month. I just don't feel like i've made enough stuff that's worth showing. another thing that's been been worrying me lately is certain elements of my personal life, which I don't really feel comfortable sharing out in the open here, but those are a source of stress as well. I guess what it *is* doesn't really matter, but I did want to mention that that's part of my problem as well, currently. The past few days have been especially weird in my head, and I'm sort of trying to get myself back on my regular track and so I thought explaining myself here might help with that a little.