Saturday Update! (Patreon)

CURRENT CG COMPLETION: 88/181

Hello friends! I hope you guys are doing well! I'm back and I'm well enough now to at least write a proper and coherent Saturday update.

Unfortunately, I have to admit that I have nothing to offer in the way of completed work [ I'm sorry! ]. Instead, this update is gonna be bit of a life update plus my plans for the next work week.

As I'm sure you guys are aware now, it's now been a week since the passing of my cat companion Aeris. I've been spending the last week just looking after myself and grieving. 

For the first few days after, I honestly was barely functioning. I couldn't sleep or eat much, and I certainly couldn't do anything that required thinking. Basically all I did was cry and watch TV. I know this might seem kind of extreme, but please understand- I raised Aeris from when she was a 3 month old kitten 11 years ago. She and I had been through so much together, through so many events of my life. Hell, I had her twice as long as I was married [ and it was 10 times as fulfilling LMAO ] And these last 3 years, she'd been my only family at home.

It's been a very extreme adjustment as well to my daily routine. I'm still getting used to it, but it definitely caused a lot of stress over the last week. Until about Wednesday I've just been a moving water balloon filled with cortisol. 

But I have been getting better. Honestly, I think it's been surprisingly rapid. Every day has been easier than the last. I'm being very gentle with myself and I'm doing a lot of self care. I'm going outside A LOT, walking, reading, and visiting with people as much as I can. I got my appetite back a bit and was able to eat solid food again yesterday. I also borrowed my parents' car and drove to the city to visit an old friend I haven't been able to see during the pandemic [ we are both single-vaxxed and were being careful ]. That was really really nice.

On Thursday night, an incredible thunderstorm rocked over my apartment. It was somehow still warm outside, and the insane lightning was going every couple of seconds, lighting up the whole sky as bright as a strange purple day. I put on a jacket and went outside and watched. It was... very special to me. I love thunderstorms and something about it felt cleansing and beautiful. It was proof that the world still holds surprises and joy for me.

In the last couple days, I've been smiling and laughing again. I hadn't laughed for... I don't know how long. At least a month. I'd been so stressed and depressed.

I don't mean to say that I'm suddenly super happy, just that I am seeing some hope and I'm taking care to build faith in my future.

I still cry sometimes and I still feel the pangs of loneliness through the day. I still miss her. I think I will always miss her. I'm just building up the strength to keep walking forward on my own.

On the first few days, I asked myself "What's the point of any of this if I have no one to share it with?" And I admit it's still a hard question to answer. But I'm getting there. Just because I live alone doesn't mean I'm completely alone. And there is a point. There's always the future as long as I'm willing to try. And of course there's all of you. You guys are still waiting for my game and maybe I'm being a little presumptuous here, but I think we do have some human connection. It may be through words on a screen, and it may be parasocial, but it is something. And it does mean something to me. I can't forget that.

Ahh, enough about my feelings! 

It's time to talk about work. 

I have a plan for next week to ease myself back into things. I don't quite feel like I'm ready yet to hammer out full-production CGs again, but I have some alternate ideas. 

I have a pile of small tasks that never really fit into my future schedule. For instance, I'd like to change the design of the save/load screens so that people can tell them apart a little easier [ they're basically identical right now ], I'd like to add buttons in so that people can delete old save files individually, and I have some ideas for sanity-related visual scares to add in here and there. Not jump-scares per se, more like quick, silent, scary blips to make people go "Did I just see that?"

I think these tasks will be a really good and rewarding way to ease myself back into work. Maybe adding in some polish will help me feel better about the game myself too [ I often struggle to love my work... especially recently ]

I think it will be good for my health to get back into my work too. I've started getting urges to do little jobs around the apartment and such. I can tell that it's time to naturally ease myself back into things. I want to find my sense of purpose again. I want to create something I can be proud of.

Anyway, before I go, I want to say thank you again. Thank you so much for supporting me and for patiently and kindly staying with me through this. I've received so many incredibly kind and gentle comments from people here and on Tumblr and Twitter and it means so, so much to me. I had some really dark moments last week but you guys were always there as a tiny bit of light in the darkness. I'm not sure what I could have done to deserve so much kindness, but I'm extremely grateful for it.

Thank you so much! Stay safe! <3