I’m not really sure where to start tonight—comics, life stuff. There’s a lot sort of muddled up in my brain at the moment, but I’m overdue for blogging so here goes.
My dog died about a week ago. She was ten years old, and one of my best friends. Some friends of mine lost one of their dogs this week too, and it has my heart aching. If you have a dog you love, you understand.
While I was trying to come to terms with the fact that I was about to lose Emmie, I drew a sad comic for an anthology that showcases the work of current, former and incoming CCS students. The anthology will be available at SPX, and I’ll put my contribution online shortly after the anthology debuts.
I’ve felt productive lately. A few days ago I came home from work with ideas bubbling around in my head, sat down at the computer and all my other plans for the evening evaporated as I wrote and revised Issue 3 of Wits End. It feels good to be writing like that again, to be sucked into the stories I’m trying to tell. I’ve been rededicating myself, trying to get at least a little done every day, no matter how busy I am. It’s been good.
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about where my energy is spent. I’m trying to decide what I want my personal “story” to look like; how I want to shape my life. Rededicating myself to my work is part of that, but the biggest change I made this week was breaking up with Walker, my wonderful, supportive boyfriend.
There were a lot of factors in play, but after months of discussion and deliberation, I decided that it was time. We may play important roles in each others lives again and we fully intend to remain friends, but our lives aren’t in the same place anymore. I miss him, but I feel optimistic. I think I made the right choice.
Having a long distance boyfriend ate up a lot of time and energy, and now that I’m not spending that energy there, I want to funnel it back into my comics and into maintenance and construction of other relationships. I want to spend more time with old friends (online and in person) and make new friends. And comics. I want to make lots of comics.
So that’s where I am. There’s a new drawing on tumblr and some dinos and other work coming soon, and I expect that there will be good days and bad days as I navigate being single again. The dog-shaped hole in my chest will heal with time. It seems so unfair that she’s gone, so cruel and unreal. But it’ll get better. We can’t go back, so we’ve gotta keep going forward. Can’t do anything else.