if I'm being honest, this project was pretty hard for me to make. So, it's time to come clean and get straight to the point. You probably saw the thumbnail of this project. Unfortunately, yes, this is goodbye. . . . I have been on scratch for around 2 and a half years and I never would have thought I'd get this far. If I went back and told my younger self with 22 followers that someday it'd become 1,573, I don't think I'd believe myself. You guys have made scratch here a wonderful place for me and created memories I will forever cherish, and I promise I'll never forget my time here. This is really why it breaks me to have to face the truth. . . . Everyone eventually grows out of things, and I still don't want to admit that this is probably the time for it. I used to love putting together little blocks of code to make small animations or games at first, and then it became aesthetics. I don't know, there was something just lovely about it. There was a joy to putting together png images to make aesthetic collages that would tie together my account and make it visually appealing. I loved watching myself grow and becoming more and more both confident and proud of my new creations. Especially when that meant getting to meet new people who shared the same interests. . . . My first 100 followers was a memorable moment. I swear, I was so happy that day. As was I with every milestone that came after. Sadly, and I'm sure you all know this, there is a limit to your motivation. Slowly, aesthetic account standards started to increase, and slowly, posting became a burden to me. I'd get extreme jealousy of other people's talent in making banners and thumbnails, and felt I wasn't good enough. As I started to reach higher numbers in followers, I experienced impostor syndrome and felt like a fraud. I felt like I wasn't good enough. I felt like everyone was better than me and anything I achieved would just be off of other people's work--even though I, myself, worked hard to create my own things. Gradually, I began to feel more and more forced to post, and just overall overwhelmed. I also felt greedy because of all this jealousy I was experiencing--but I just couldn't help it. Fortunately, during this times, I had some of the most amazing friends (*cough* the squad and others *cough*). Though, no matter how much fun I had on that side of scratch, the overwhelmingness of posting didn't stop. It just felt ...boring, and not fun like it used to be. At the same time, I had to deal with irl life and school too--all of which were not easy to juggle with one another. I don't know, I just feel like I grew out of scratch, and it wasn't being healthy for me anymore. I felt like a beggar when I felt down about wishing my followers would move again. Plus, everyone kept begging me for banners and it felt like that's the only reason they cared for me. After I shut down banner requests, my popularity levels really dropped (no, I do not care if I was popular or not. I'm just saying that banners were a big part of my account and just too exhausting to make anymore). Banners and thumbnails took a really long time to make and that also felt like a burden. It was like I was doing school work. School work that didn't mean as much as it used to to you. And that's when my mother ended up finding my account--while she knew it existed, she had never taken a look at it until then. And then slowly people from my irl life started spilling in. The one place where I could be myself had just been restricted. If you're reading this, mom, no offense to you, you're not the problem here (I mean this genuinely). I now felt like I had been attached to chains that held me down from doing anything I loved anymore. That's when my first break happened. I felt like I could relax more now. I began to drift away from scratch. After that, when I decided to come back to scratch, I got into drama and this ended up making my mental state worse than it already had been. Although I posted a few projects and talked to friends, I didn't go onto scratch much after that, as I was starting to find new interests and hobbies. . . . So, I guess this is the end of it. I don't feel like posting that much anymore. Maybe every now and then, but it just isn't fun and it doesn't contribute to me in any way. I feel like now, sky and cheryl (cherrii), who came from the same person, are completely different people. I'm more mature now in a way, and that's not entirely a bad thing. I wish I could say more, but I can't. That's basically it. I'm really sorry if this disappoints any of you--because it does to me, too. I wish I still liked scratch. I wish I still wanted to post as much as I used too, but I don't think that feeling, that exhilaration of doing what I loved, will ever come back. I'll really miss you guys, and I hope you can move on. I'm sorry that my scratch journey had to end here. -sincerely, sky--or as you may have remembered, cheryl.
