Think like you haven't ever, try to remember the days
When we would talk 'til the light, before morning
Your summer neck is burned with salt and sand
I lost my fingers trying to find your old hands

In time, maybe
We'll discover we
Could've been closer to the core, yeah

In time, maybe
We'll discover we
Could've been closer, closer

It's funny, how perspective works. I've mentioned this before, but I've really sequestered myself these past few years. There's only so often you can watch things blow up in your face before you stop having the desire to talk to anyone outside the group. It left me with a surprising amount of social anxiety, frankly. I stopped having good chats and friends to balance out the sheer number of bad experiences I'd had in some unbelievably catty Discord full of grown men.

Part of the issue was expectations. It's hard not being mari, the big bad Flareon, when you've always been that to people, especially when that's grown out of my frustrations talking to people and positioning myself as this highly active and highly reactive social force. If you think that sounds silly, let me put it another way—it's hard to shake a bad first impression. People's first impressions of me were, for a long time, polarizing, and my first impressions of other people were similarly colored. It was still stressful, even when I'd talk to people I (thought I) was on good terms with. There's a reason "It's a violent way we have, even when we smile" is one of my favorite lyrics ever written, and one of the ones I had in my footer on mari_nc1. Interpersonally, with people I was close to and people I wasn't, that was the feeling.

Anyone who goes "well just stop doing that" is missing the point. It was something I had to grow out of, and even when I grew, the people around me didn't, necessarily. It was still the same old environment, the same Discords, that caused me to act out in the first place. You can't just expect an alcoholic to not drink even when they're still around alcohol all day, it's a fault in our brain wiring. My solution was to give up socializing completely, and that meant giving up on a lot of things that I loved. A lot of community, a lot I can contribute to projects outside the group, and living as a digital hermit. It was pretty miserable.

I'm starting to climb out of my shell again, which has been super nice. It's not perfect—I still have occasional moments of being basically convinced that folks quietly hate me, which was absolutely terrible early this week and thankfully has abated. I still have a hard time considering myself to have mental health issues, but I really can't think of any other way to describe it—it was effectively two days of me being stuck in this oppressively miserable imagined mental exile, which isn't ideal over Valentine's Day, I must say. Feeling much better now, thankfully!

As for where I've been! Been hanging out with the good folks at Aftersleep (site is currently down, but we're currently in #aftersleep on Rizon as a backup, and I think I'll be parked in that channel permanently now)—I missed talking site stuff with people. It was cool seeing yoshi join too, after what happened with him in the past. I'm just some fucking guy figuring this out. I genuinely don't harbor ill will towards people, and I'd hope they don't towards me. If we can be friends again and folks can avoid being fried out shitheads, that's the ideal.

I've also lined up a little contributor spot with Protoweb, which is a beyond-cool Web proxy that dishes out restored old 90s websites to retro browsers. When I get back to the US, I'm gonna be working on getting Gopher support finalized, both restoring period Gopherholes to browse and helping map out how their funky custom HTTP proxy should serve up Gopher data. I've really been enjoying peeking in their Discord once or twice a day and chatting between Caby drawing goff dogs and alien cats on the PC. Feeling free to not be stressed out all the time for once—highly enjoyable.

I'm also now on sheezy.art! I paid for early access so I could snag the name cammy on there, and even with a late upload and a small active userbase, my first drawing on there got a surprisingly nice reception! Honestly, same with DeviantART (where I'm active again—it's the place my drawings did best and it's where I find the most art I actually like) and FurAffinity; I gained watchers just from this one Cammy drawing. So I guess uploading art more regularly and seriously is also back on the menu!

Again, it was anxiety that kept me from pursuing it, but y'know what, spring is coming, the time is right, I miss having a presence, and I miss talking to new people. Let's do it.