Post-Move Life Update (Patreon)

Meowdy, Funland. I've kept the ship steady. It's been quite a storm for me recently. I've had to listen more than I've walked. I've had to talk and communicate more than I've sat and contemplated and measured. More than I normally I do, I've had to take and process things slow. I've had a family emergency come up, a commitment to a move across the country happen while that happens, and of course, money slips through my fingers like water. New roommate process, new living situation woes, new reasons to test my resolve and routine. My life has improved, I've changed - but life stays the same, don't it? No one ever gets out alive.

My grandfather has come under harder weather than he ever has. While I've moved to Washington, back home where I'm from, in Arkansas, my only grandfather, someone who has been there since day one for me, housed me and my mother for the first seven years of my life - a true family member, through and through, has contracted a liver disease. He's not well. He'll need, as my great grandmother said to me on the phone, a miracle. I believe that. I believe in him. I also have already grieved, essentially, or started the process for myself if nothing else. Because I'm really going through it.

But I've made three very crucial phone calls, and then had to make some more, and they helped me release tension and stress and some legitimately deep rooted fears. I throw no pearls before swine when i say that I needed space, I was offered space, I took the opportunity. A friend I met offered me support and direction and much easier advice to take than i was willing to in the heat and squalor of my last living situation. While it hurts my heart that there's no way I can justify getting an emergency plane ticket to see him *if* he doesn't have any more time after today, or tomorrow, or really I suppose for the foreseeable future, given how much work I've recently promised.... That's what makes me so glad that he's been there.

He woke up every day as miserable as he possible could be. Maybe he'd psyche himself out, maybe he was simply a grumpy old man since I was born, but I feel like I know now, given space and dedication and perseverance to my own dream, that he woke up every day driven. He worked. If he was grumpy, it's because he had faith and wisdom in his own strength, and he kept his head down, and he toiled the earth. He knew that the world has a cycle of feast and famine. What a foundational man to me, solid as can be - he was a provider for his family. He knew money would never feed his family like work could, his corn could, his potatoes, his deer meat, his cattle, the single alligator he was allowed to hunt based on a once in a lifetime lottery chance could. He genuinely had sharp eyes and an even sharper mind. So sharp that he could see a famine from a mile away.

And so, throughout this process of grieving that - genuinely, I mean it y'all - I've known to take weeks or even months or *years* to hit me based on proximity and consequence and intimacy of my life, I've not been shaken. He's not dead yet. He's got time. And whether or not I see him today, tomorrow, Christmas, or never again in the flesh, I *will* see him again one day. I made a phone call to gather the courage, then I found the strength, and he had so much wisdom that it poured into me the moment I ventured out on a money move and some much needed environmental change, and so I called him. I let him know I believe in him, and that I love him, and that his kids do, and he's such a douche bag that everyone loves to hate him.

But that's the thing about assholes. Everyone's got one. And I'm so thankful and blessed that I learned from this kind asshole.

Heroes get remembered. But he's got the triforce - and legends never die.

His name is Randy, Funland. Wish him well and send him your energy, however you do that.

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MEANWHILE

it's been a frustratingly familiar July! I've had to move *yet again* and promise lots of work! But longtime Attendees, those much loved Stockholders and VIP Attendees know I've been through *far* worse moving situations, and this one.... while rocky, is not filled with strife. It's *INCREDIBLY* nice where I live atm, and y'all have come to expect work from me! I'll be damned if I don't get on back to it, I've been itching for more work time - and I've come to learn through both wisdom AND advice that when I'm back to constantly drawing, I've got a problem to solve. 

The move and the plan to move and moving day? Problems, solved and in the past. Grandfather's eaten too much crow, now he's made himself sick? Well, I'm 30 driving hours away, I know he'd commit to his family but *I* can commit to my own personal toil as hard as he can, and I was already doing so. I've got *new* family problems that, I'll admit? Are completely out of my hands, and I can still have a say and maybe lend a hand, so, personally? I've got time, now. :)

Time for you, Funland, because today is a gift - that why deliverance comes in the form of being in the present.

I'll be updating the look and some cards on the Trello before Sunday, I owe a LOT of Patreon work and I genuinely didn't want to give y'all like.... worries? I've been publicly quiet, because this is a family thing. Those that have given me emergency money so I could keep going and grab groceries, get anti anxiety, keep steady, let me breathe, you know who you are. Bottom of my heart, thank you.

I never knew my father. But I knew my grandfather. He made work for himself, then he worked twice as hard to take half of the fruit of his labor and save it for later. So I'll do the same for you, Funland. Cause I was already doing it for me.

Have a good day and a better tomorrow.