All or Nothing. (Patreon)

20 days old artichokes and 13,145 days old cartoonist taking their photo. On June 25th I will be 13,150 days old, which is more commonly referred to as 36 years old and dude. My dudes. What the fuck. What the fuckaroo. 

I meet strangers who tell me they’ve been following my online projects and over-sharing and my mess of a life since I was 15. 

I’ve spent about 2/3rds of my life doing... this. What even is this? Creating in public. Sharing in public. Humiliating myself in public. Learning in public. Self-destructing in public. 

It’s brought the most important people into my life and helped me construct the most stable environment I could for myself. It’s exposed me to some of the greatest harm that’s ever scorched me, it’s gotten close to destroying me multiple times. 

I don’t know what I’m doing. 

Those good people who found me from my postings on the internet all those years ago, the ones I mentioned earlier, they keep me going. They keep me alive. I'm living because of them. I'm living for them. 

Someone once asked me, in light of the trauma and destruction it’s brought to me, if I’d do it all again or if I’d keep my projects and my over-sharing and my human mess off the Internet in order to protect myself this second time around and as the words “I’d absolutely keep myself off the internet” were tumbling out of my mouth, I realized that wasn’t true. 

For all the very real professional, personal, mental, emotional, and physical harm it’s done me, I would do it all again to have these people— my people, my community, my chosen family— in my life, in my heart. 

It’s All or Nothing, and I choose All. 

For better and for worse, I choose All.