Being 100% Myself (Patreon)

TLDR:
I've had time to find myself this January. I apologize for the slow goes. I've done a lot of self-growth. I plan to do my best moving forward.
Cheers! 🍻
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Hey everyone.
Here is a personal update rather than a business-related one. I hope it'll give some insight into what I've been up to this month. This is self-indulgent and wordy on purpose. I want to feel I'm getting my point across. I'll feel better by taking the time to say what I want to say. This isn't a short and sweet news update. Just trying to warn you before you dive in.

I understand that things have been slow on my end for January. I admittingly just allowed myself to only work as comfortably as I could. Meaning taking breaks and only doing enough work-wise to not experience burnout. This has made me feel very guilty, however. I feel this way because I have so much to do. There is a huge abundance of work I need to complete to make ends meet. So knowing how busy I am, and still taking time off just feels wrong to me. But, I don't believe it should. The time I've taken for myself this month has helped me to see things more clearly. 

I've thought about what I want to do with my life. I don't want to become a meme. There are already so many stories of these personalities online that just death spiral and beg for help and are always full of excuses. And this fear of becoming one myself made me feel the urge to just sit and suffer in my office. Pushing through pain to get stuff done. And I'm not complaining that it's hard, because being an artist online is already hard enough. I'm just saying after all that sacrifice I could not feel the reward or satisfaction of a good day's work. And you cannot keep a fire going without anything to burn. That was me. A fire still managing to stay lit but with nothing keeping it going but itself. And that took its toll. Some things caused this that still linger with me.

Things came to a head last year. Problems arose and were much harder than they needed to be. They were caused by toxic family obligations. What I mean by that is there were expectations put on me by my parents. Anything other than complete submission would be met with disdain and emotional distance. So I did what I could and stayed focused on following every order for all of these family events that occurred in 2022. After last Christmas, I just hit a wall. I could not do this anymore. Thankfully my parents have moved into their dream retirement home and are far away from influencing my life. (Thank god. 💦)

I bring this up because this compounds my feelings for my art. I've realized that even before I did this full-time, I was not viewing this profession healthfully/ positively. I put many obligations on myself. Anyone with working eyes can see the hundreds of amazing posts by amazing artists every day on any given platform. I felt (and still do) this pressure to compete and "win" against these artists and their galleries. And if that sounds toxic and uncomfortable to you, I am jealous that it was so easy for you to see that so quickly. Because it took me over eight plus years for me to realize what I was doing to myself. These two walls, of toxic family obligations and toxic perspectives on things that are just supposed to be simple hobbies with passion sprinkled on top, were crushing me on both sides. Thankfully I believe I am realizing this fully now and I am trying to get better.

This January in 2023 has been nice. The time I've given myself to breathe has been nothing short of life-changing. All I did, was wake up when I was ready, ate when I was hungry, and indulged just enough to feel like I was taking care of myself. This was unheard of in 2022. I would call 2022 my workhorse year. Just working. Only working. I think without actually realizing it I broke myself. I was too numb. Numb from trying not to feel when my family was being so awful. Being numb to my inadequacies when I feel inspired by others' artwork and then feel the distance in skill between us almost simultaneously. I wasn't allowing myself to be happy. Because I knew if I opened that door I'll invite all the other emotions I don't like as well.

It's hard to explain but I feel like I have hope now. I feel like I can solve these problems. Because I am allowing myself the time to solve them. I'm letting myself feel. And to know how something makes me feel helps me to come up with a solution if it's a problem. This all seems so embarrassingly basic when I type it out. Seeing my new mindset written on paper makes it all seem so small. When all I've done is just allow myself to sit on my couch, eat some chips and just watch some T.V. That informs me that I wasn't even allowing myself this basic luxury. To just be. I'm even realizing things as I type out this journal. Part of me regrets being this personal. But another part says it's time to be vulnerable. It's time to feel. I am an artist. I still love art. I still want to improve. But it's hard to move forward when I feel like I'm not being honest.

So I'll take a moment, to be honest. I am still trying. I do not feel like a professional. I feel there's still a lifetime of learning before I even get slightly closer to the kind of artist I want to be. But I still want to be here. I still want to make things even if they aren't good. Or they aren't as good as I'd like them to be. And I'm okay with that. Saying this (or typing this) out loud stops my thoughts from being so self-destructive. This is me. I'm here and I'm trying and failing and winning. I'm tired of letting the toxic standards I set for myself keep me from breathing. Now that I think about it, from day one of being Schwoo I haven't been honest. From day one I've tried to be everyone else besides myself. Pretending to be every big name in any given category. Because it wasn't enough to be semi-good at one thing. I needed to be great at everything. And I would fake that as much as I could to feel I was doing what I needed to.

I think this toxic mindset stems from a lifetime of unsatisfied parental upbringing (yep we're circling back to that). By this, I mean that my parents didn't know what the fuck they were doing when raising me. I was left at school without being picked up. I had to walk 10+ miles to get home on my own. I was forgotten at weight training when the class was over. Being picked up 45+ minutes later after all the other guys went home. I had money taken out of my bank account when I was in my mid 20's for my birthday so my parents could afford streamers and cake. FOR MY BIRTHDAY. Even after I explained, I wanted to just be with my family. We could go for a walk in the park, watch a movie, anything. But that wasn't enough for my parents. They needed MY money for MY birthday. It's just dumb. I want nothing to do with them. They never wanted anything to do with me in the first place. (I understand this angst is coming out of the left field but as I type I'm realizing just how fucked up my parents are, and how they treated me is how I've started to treat myself.) They were the only people I feel I could connect with growing up. Looking back, I know my peers in school picked up on my lack of self-worth. It makes sense why I was bullied so much. I was always tall and big. Which made me a prime target for bullying. I never fought back, I was always a punching bag for everyone. I had a beard in middle school. I was the definition of "masculinity" and it always made me the center of attention whether I wanted it or not. A lot of other boys always felt like they had to fight me when I never even said a word to them. But I had no idea how to interact with people because my parents taught me, "do what we tell you or you'll be punished." So I didn't have any clue about just being a normal person, to just having normal human interactions with people. I was never popular. I didn't know how to be. So there was a lot of clowning around and being the comic relief around my peers. Never allowed to be me because it was wrong. I remember the night I knew I needed to stay home. I wanted to be an artist, and I knew I needed to practice. But it was Wednesday which meant it was church night. Which meant being ready by a certain time to leave for mid-week Jesus lessons. I was tired of doing this. I've done it for almost my entire life up to that point because of my parents' demands. But that night, I tried to stand up and tell my parents no. No, I want to stay home and practice art. My father yelled at me so much I got scared and apologized. I went to Wednesday church lessons but not before I got grounded. And I will never forget that day.

I'm describing all that chaos because there's peace when I'm alone and it's just me. There's much-needed peace. I don't have to deal with anyone telling me what they think is right. Now I don't want to be alone forever. I don't hate people. I just hate not being able to think and come up with solutions that make sense. This helps me to realize why I have enjoyed January so much. Even though my car died, my brother's car died, I can't drive to see my grandmother while she's living in a retirement home, or even my brother who lives a little north, I can't get my own groceries, my bank account fluctuates between being in the negative, only having double-digit funds for weeks, and triple-digit funds for moments, I feel stable. I can heal now. I can heal in peace. But while I'm healing I'm learning. And I've learned if I want to move forward I need to be honest. So I will.

I don't know what I'm doing. I'm struggling every day. And I'm okay with that. I've learned that's normal. That can happen. But it's also temporary. So long as I keep trying and I don't give up, there's hope. I still have hope. Because I'm still here. And I don't want to give up. I feel this proclamation of information is some backed-up confession I could never tell my family. Because if I did I would be ostracized. I'd be punished for being in pain. Because pain is a weakness, and exploitable. This says a lot about my parents and peers feeding off of my insecurity and all that. Jesus, it's all making sense as I write this all out.

The time I've had with myself has been my growing years as a person. I'm learning who I am without people punishing me for asking questions when I'm already expected to know everything because I'm supposed to be "me", Mr. Perfect. I want to apologize to everyone that has been affected by my lack of self-worth. I am so sorry. I deeply apologize for letting work/ backlog get this out of hand. But I'm not going anywhere. And I'm going to fix it. I'm going to fix this. It's just me. I'm alone with two cats, a decent computer set up, the peers and mutuals and friends I've made along the way, and a dream.

If you've made it this far, thank you. I just could not do anything else until I stated just where I am at the moment. I am going to stop pretending to be someone I am not. So I can finally work with peace of mind. It's been one hell of a month, and we still got eleven to go. But I'm still here and trying. You all are amazing. And I thank you for following me for as long as you have. I promise to do better. I will be better. Because I'm going to start being myself. Just taking things one step at a time, and doing them in a way that has meaning to me.

Here's to a great start to February. Thank you for reading. It means a lot.
Cheers! 🍻