Looks like it's time for my annual Newgrounds update!

I'm glad to say I'm at 116 followers on this page now, which is actually double what I had two years ago! I wanna keep making cartoons and I'm glad that gradually, more and more people are noticing my stuff and I feel like I am getting better. Thanks to everyone who decided to stick around.

Life post-graduation is very strange, and way more confusing and scary than I anticipated. I've been working full time for my base as a photographer and videographer, and it hasn't been a bad job, but it's definitely not what I saw myself doing after going to college for filmmaking and making animations on the side all the time. I feel unfulfilled, lonely, and sad, and have felt that way all year despite being in a relatively good place in my life with a decent paying job. I think being away from friends and family, and having a lot of friends move away recently, is the culprit. It's been a bummer and has progressively gotten worse because I've failed to make the personal steps to deal with my mental health in a healthy way. Making 'The Maskless Raccoon' (what I consider my thesis film) during my final semester at college on top of other classes was the biggest and longest grind I did in college, which was appropriate I guess since it was truly the final stretch, but I had just lost my family dogs at the time and threw myself into my work, which is the same thing I did when my grandma passed a year earlier while I was in the middle of working on 'Trash Panda', and after being pretty damn miserable for most of this year, I've come to a conclusion. It isn't healthy to cope using creation alone.

I've constantly focused on making stuff whenever I felt down. Ever since I was a kid actually! I think my dad being such a despicable person and wanting to get away from that reality is why I started drawing comics in the early 00s. It's always been good for productivity but not good for my mental health. Distracting myself by making stuff never solved my problems, and I've got a lot to figure out, so I've decided to take a sabbatical, and do something I've been wanting to do basically my whole life, which is travel the world, if just for a little bit. I don't know how long I'll be going around places, but I don't have a girlfriend, pet, debt, or a lease at the moment so I still have a good opportunity to exit what has become my normal life and step outside myself for a bit. I could have gotten a studio apartment closer to work, but I have been so wickedly depressed and anxious recently, I just don't think that would've been a smart move.

The only thing tying me down is having to come back once a month for work. I luckily have saved up enough to be gone for a while, so that's what I'll be doing here soon. I've built up so many walls due to my own past trauma, and I want to figure out ways of rectifying that and bettering myself. I'm not a religious dude but I have needed to look for at least a bit of spiritual guidance recently, and I'm becoming more and more intrigued with Buddhist philosophies. I need to find peace in my mind and in my life, and I feel like a lot of the lessons there can help. Meditation at least definitely helps.

This, by no means, means I'm quitting. I'll still make stuff, but I do need to take a break for myself. I know I will never become a "success" overnight, it would take a shitload more time and effort than what I've been putting in due to work and lack of personal focus, but I hope taking this time for self-reflection will help me come back better than ever. I want to make great stuff, I love making people laugh, and I won't stop trying to make that my way of living, as long as I am living.

Hopefully by my next update I'll be more at peace. Good luck out there. Don't forget to take time for yourself and talk to your homies!