Viennese Ball 2026

Another ball came and went.  I've lost count of how many I've been to at this point, but the last post is here, to keep the chain going, I guess.

Apparently last year I wrote that the ball went by quicker than I expected, and that I needed to rest a lot after participating in the cross-step waltz contest.  That seems to be becoming more the norm, somehow.  I feel like a big part of the ball this year was doing one contest, being really tired, resting while watching another one, then doing a third one.  It's crazy how much energy I can expend in these things.

I think I'm getting a healthier and healthier attitude toward them in general, also.  Practice makes perfect, I guess?  After doing things enough times, they just don't really seem like they are as big of a deal anymore.  In most cases, for how I like to live life, that's a good thing.  Honestly, I'm just glad I survived the night; thanks to trying really hard in the contests and then also probably partly due to my suspenders being a bit too tight, I was really really sore and tired after it all, like more than normal.  One of my dance partners was also at limited physical capacity due to other extenuating circumstances, so I'm just glad everyone just made it through alright.

I'm also happy that the waltz contests had some great showings!  Thinking back to the days where I felt like we were completely showed up by what went down in the swing room, I am happy that the waltz crowd is showing up and stepping up as best they can.  As a more vernacular form of dance we will perhaps never have the infrastructure and history that the other dances have, but there is a reason it is still always my "home dance" even despite all that.

It was nice to have a buddy to go to the ball with!  Something that I feel like has really not been part of my regular experience before, and it makes a big difference, as you might expect.  Life's moments are usually nicer when they are shared, especially when it's events and such like these.

It felt like I had more people this year come up to me and talk to me about appreciating my performances this year.  Or maybe my memory of the past years is just foggy, but it really did feel like more (random) people came up to me this year.  That was a nice feeling!  It really validated why I keep participating in these things in the first place (and why I keep saying no when I'm asked to judge them).

I think there have been times in the past when I have been more stuck-up about my dancing, and had some sort of weird superiority complex where I really thought I was "all that".  To be fair, I'm sure with the number of years I've been to these things, there were =some= years where maybe that was true.  But I think I've had enough time to know that my dancing has weaknesses and pitfalls, too.  I don't just mean the fact that I don't lead dips, lifts, or aerials either, there are concrete things about my lines, my form, my control, even my stage presence, that are not really on par with the rest of my dancing.  Some of that has been stuff that I've thought about at times, others of them I have not really tried to even work on much, but most of doesn't really come naturally to me, so progress is always slow.  It was easier to focus on what I understood best, what I prioritized as being most important in my own dancing.  The things that I point out to people when I give them private lessons -- leading and following technique, continuity in patterns.  I guess musicality too, but that one is rarely covered in lessons, heh.

There are many things that I would consider "fundamental principles" that aren't really followed by people who don't know better.  When we think about the principles of connection and movement in West Coast Swing, there is a lot of emphasis on linear or lateral inertia, momentum, and tension and compression.  There are analogues to all of those things in a rotational dance as well.  There are proper ways to facilitate a change in rotation, much the same as there are proper ways to do a change of direction.  There is not only such thing as rotational inertia but also rotational elasticity.

That all said, I think part of what draws me to admire solo dancers is that their skillset epouses things that I lack in my own dancing, but put forth in a way that's, frankly, really awesome.  That is not to say that these things like posture, form, line, and body control are not important in partner dancing, but you can, to a large extent, be a successful partner dancing while neglecting a few, or even most of these things.  That is a reason that I'm always keen at observing people who come from a following background and then learn to lead -- not just because they are predominantly women and I think girls who lead are cool, but because experienced follows on some level gain experience (whether through intentional practice or intuition) about how to utilize their free arm, how to develop a curve, how to maintain a certain poise and balance that is required for all of the figures they move through.  As a leader you can certainly utilize a free arm in so far as it benefits the mechanics of your motion, but so rarely is it the focus of our attention.  Of course, different disciplines treat this kind of thing differently; ballroom dance for example puts more of an emphasis on this sort of thing.

Well, things to aspire to, I guess, or perhaps not.  There is only so much time I am willing to spend on betterment of my dancing.  These days I have almost zero improvement momentum in partner dance, and of course I'd probably rather see improvements in my solo dancing anyways.  Form, shape, and line.  I guess these are things that I ought to spend some minutes on every time I go out dancing.

I usually feel like I should be blogging before bed but somehow I've not been the best at getting to it, which I guess is slightly concerning.  Can probably give another go at making a before-bed ritual and getting to bed on time (sigh) but for now I'll just sit down and type out some stuff.  As I grow older there's definitely an increasing sense of "this stuff doesn't matter".  It's different for different things of course, like I stopped taking photos as often a long time ago because I realized I didn't really care about them and there was no way I was gonna go back years and years after and look back at them, unless they were particular memories that I wanted to keep or share.  I've hardly ever felt that way about blogging as a general practice, but I've certainly lost that aspect of "I need to jot down everything that happened" in my blog.  On the one hand, I think it's healthy to not have some sort of compulsion to have to actively deal with every single thing that happens in your life, but on the other hand, I know this kind of practice can in theory (and in practice?) be helpful for mental health, so I don't think it's really a good or a bad thing.

I've had one plant that I've kept, that I received from my best friend in June of 2021 (honestly it was farther back in my memory than that) -- an African violet that I keep in a pot on my windowsill.  I always thought it was really fitting with my general approach to life that I just had one that I kept over a long time.  Like with most things in my life, I don't really use a scheduled reminder or system to water it every few days, I just kind of just do it automatically, there's this "sense" in my head of how long its been since the last time, and I end up just doing it at regular intervals.

Late last year I wrote about how it had been too-long-overdue for a repotting and had been looking in bad shape because of it; I ended up not only repotting it but removing and trimming quite a lot of it, it was really a small wimpy looking thing after that and I honestly could have done a better job (and trusted my instincts more) when formulating the new potting mix.  But it got through that phase just fine, and has grown to a full plant again, with some very healthy blooming flowers starting to emerge.

I feel like there is a parallel to what has happened with my life too -- well, maybe not as dramatic as having blooming flowers and such, but at the very least, I went through a cycle of recovery and regrowth to reach the point where I am once again.  Things are not perfect -- the early spring blooms (onset by the random weird warm days we've had) have triggered an onset of allergies, and I skipped out on MCS yesterday because I was feeling exhausted and had somehow tweaked my shoulder.  It ended up being the right choice; I was just in no shape to even make it out there, I had slept too late the previous night, for no real good reason (just idly playing some Ravenswatch), oops.

But despite those things, life is overall positive right now, with some aspirations for growth here and there, which is always nice.  To go along with the whole recover and regrowth theme, I went to the head spa the other day for the first time since Sept 2024 (don't you just love how I have all these dates on hand?).  I haven't had any sort of body work done since that time I don't think, and honestly it's been too long.  Especially in the life that I lead right now, being cared for via physical touch is something that I just don't have access to, so I think I should think about making that more of a regular part of my self-love routine somehow.  "Quality time" and "acts of service" and "gift giving" are always the easier ones to think about when thinking about self-love I think; when it comes to physical touch it's easy to just think of it in a vulgar way, but there's really more to things than that and I think it's a need that I've just been assuming is impossible to meet without looking to actually address it in ways other than having some sort of lovey-dovey relationship where I'm hugging somebody all the time.  "Words of affirmation" is an interesting one too, but lower on my priority list at the moment (though it can really be important sometimes!), so not a huge deal.

I'm trying some new actives for my skincare routine as well, so we'll see how that goes and whether my skin ends up being happy or unhappy with them.  In a move that I'm sure dermatologists and skincare gurus would approve of, I'm also starting to wear sunscreen even on my indoor-only days, since my skin will be a little more sensitive to UV.

I finally posted a Rhythm Quest devlog on all the verified artist work that I've been doing.  It's been nice to only =imagine= what people in the Rhythm Quest discord might be saying and thinking about it rather than actually be subject to an immediate feedback loop for my work.  The practice of "just being able to do my stuff" is really nice!  For the record, I still have channels for people to direct feedback to, it's just not the same as when people are just open-voicing whatever thoughts they may have.  Hopefully I can keep up the good momentum working on the project; you might think that it's going at a slow pace since it took me until March to get out a single devlog post, but I actually feel like my rate of work is going alright!

As far as Ravenswatch goes, I completed my goal of hitting a Nightmare (hardest difficulty) clear with each of the characters, so that's a nice little flagpost of an achievement.  It's an interesting game for sure, fun and with some tricky/nuanced systems in place, but very bad IMHO at its onboarding experience and doesn't do a lot of handholding, which probably turns off a lot of players, or at least I'd expect it to.  I'm used to playing a lot of old games with rather-cryptic systems in place where ostensibly a small part of the joy is discovering and solutioning exactly what is going on and in what matter you should be playing, so I don't necessarily mind a ton, but I still find myself questioning whether some of the design choices could just be more elegant and still achieve the same goals.  Fortunately, it's a bunch of stuff that's =fine= once you get used to it (not the kind of stuff that's just constantly annoying no matter how you slice it), but was it really worth designing it this specific way?  I'm not so sure.  Anyhow, I'll still probably be playing here and there; I've got some characters to rank up and all.

ALTTPR is in an interesting spot as there is an individual in the weekly races who has a suspicious habit of hitting the right route and getting not only the top time but the lowest collection rates...?  I'm all for admitting that while I am a strong and knowledgeable player I'm nothing crazy compared to some of the other folks that play (we all have our own strengths and weaknesses I'm sure), but it was difficult for me to figure out whether I should take it as a sign that there's room for me to improve or just write it off.  After some time thinking about it I'm splitting the difference and not really making it a goal to take the first place spot, but thinking of it as an experience to consider different ways that I could play if I was trying to spike a fast time (which is not my normal goal).  It'll probably be a shorter-lived experiment and not a shift in my overall playstyle, but I'm trying to take it as a learning opportunity.

Going to Teance has been great as always -- I have been recently tipping my toes into wuyi rock oolongs, so I have been starting to order their Shui Xian instead of just getting white tea like always.  We have another letter writing club meeting this weekend, which should be nice -- I definitely have a few letters that I need to catch up on.  I think I've been falling back to only writing letters during letter-writing club since it's just a dedicated time for that, but honestly it's not enough time haha.

The dating app stuff is going just fine still, I think the tricky thing about those is that like, for these other social opportunities to meet people, the best ones are the ones where if you don't really meet anybody it doesn't really feel like a waste of time.  I always think back to that one event I went to where we volunteered at the food bank and I ended up really not being into meeting and socializing with the people there, but I was just volunteering at a food bank anyways, so I felt good about the whole thing anyways.  Dating apps are really low commitment since everyone is just swiping through them while they're going potty or whatever (lol) but I think there's more of that like, "maybe this is just a waste of time" if there's nothing else nourishing or satisfying that comes out of it.

VBall went pretty alright!  But this post is quite long already, so that'll probably be a different post... 

2026.02

https://ddrkirbyisq.bandcamp.com/album/monthlies-202602 

After more and more experience, my artworks are becoming a little more polished, a little more proficient. Maybe the same is true with myself as a person, too. Things that used to worry me, don't seem to be as big of a deal now.

Once you've done something over and over again, you start to feel much less intimidated by it. I was having a conversation with some friends recently about how my regular approach to writing music (once a week), and to some extent, artwork (once a month), has helped me come to grips with the natural peaks and valleys of creative output without letting them affect my sense of self-confidence.

The same is surely true of other things in life, too. Starting conversations with strangers. Expressing gratitude. Trying to be a little bit more friendly, encouraging, a little less stuck-up, self-centered.

The scary thing is that repetition can also desensitize you to things -- or worse. We become accustomed to having certain conveniences, we forget how to live without certain tools. We accept that things just are the way they are. Sure, there are many things that become easier with time, but if you keep on having negative experiences, it becomes that much easier to give up.

As the years go by, that sense of "fatigue" surfaces for me just a little bit more often. There's this little voice in the back of my head that says "it's pointless, I should just give up..."

As someone who tends to be risk averse and focuses on pragmatism, it's usually important to me to craft my dreams and ambitions out of what I know is reasonably within my grasp. But there are still vestiges of a yearning for something more, remnant feelings lingering like hope inside Pandora's box. They are few and far between, but it is always terrifying to look inside and see that one has faded and disappeared.

I think it's time for me to really sit down with an update...well, here we go.

My upcoming trip got cancelled, probably for the best for all parties involved.  Obviously I'm excited to have some more time back, and to just not be traveling, but even as far as the trip's main goals went I'm not sure how well it all would have turned out.  Anyways, that's one less thing to worry about, which is quite nice.

VBall is coming up once again, this time back at the good ol Burlingame location.  I can tell that I'm aging because some of the stuff (these waltz contests and everything) that I seemed to get really uppity about in the past just don't seem like as big of a deal anymore.  That's the natural way of how things go, right?  Of course, I bet I'll still have some element of nerves just going to the event (the curse of being high on neuroticism and a little prone to anxiety I guess), but it's just like, this thing happens every year, does anyone really care that much, blahblahblah.  Which is not to say I don't care at all, or didn't put some thought into how I want to approach things, or didn't reflect on it at all, but just, it feels like "just another thing".  Which is good, it's how most things in life ought to be.

I ended up undefeated in the glitched mentor tournament, thanks to my hard work and practice all throughout.  There's always this underpinning of "the 'better' player doesn't always get the faster time" that's present when it comes to ALTTPR and racing ALTTPR in particular, but it sometimes surprises me how much you really DO come out ahead when you have the skills to back it up.  From my early days with ALTTPR I've always assumed that seeds get really nonlinear and that you can't ever predict what's happening on the other side, but the more and more I play the more I realize that there's a large subset of stuff that both/all players end up doing in some order, and then the differences that actually lead to meaningful time differentials are actually fewer and farther between than you might thing.  I think that's of course even more true than normal when overworld glitches come into effect since to me there are less awkward situations where you're choosing between 3-4 bad choices -- there's more of an emphasis on raw efficiency over a long term, which is what I like.  It's been interesting to come back to non-glitched modes, not just because I've had to shake off some rust, but because I think I have slightly differing perspectives on some things.

Rhythm Quest work has been going pretty okay and I've been doing my best to just squeeze in work on it whenever I can.  I've got pretty okay momentum for the current big stream of work that I'm doing and I look forward to a feeling of accomplishment when I can wrap up a devlog post and share what I've been working on with all the publishing/verified artist stuff.

Besides ALTTPR, Ravenswatch has remained my default sort of "I just wanna play something I guess" game.  It's providing a good amount of challenge and interest, though some of these characters really have it rough in the early game.  I've gotten clears with 4 characters on the hardest difficulty so far, with some good luck and skill I'll manage to expand that further to more members of the cast.

Yeah, I ended up having a bit of a low point where I doubted my self-worth and all that.  I'm feeling like I've bounced back from it, fortunately.  There is this weird (maybe not so weird) sort of thing that happens (not just to teenagers) where when you come across something that seems threatening to your psyche the easiest way to deflect the damage is to just try and mentally stamp all over it.  But really those two things are not really supposed to be connected, it's a false dichotomy to tie your self worth to another person's lack thereof, or to the validity or invalidity of an idea or belief.

It is dangerous to base your sense self-worth based on external validation, BUT at the same time, there is some truth to the matter; ultimately a lot of our interactions, relations, and connections depend on our perceived worth to others.  This has always been a struggle for me to think about, because I think both of the "simple" ways of looking at it are really unsatisfying.  "Work on yourself to become someone that other people value" is not really satisfying, but neither is "Just be yourself and don't worry about what others think".  As with most simple yet hard things in life, the real path probably lies somewhere in the nebulous in-between.  Living day to day and connecting with people is probably a matter of finding the intersection of that venn diagram between what you value in yourself and what others might value in you.

I had this weird analogy that I drew the other day about seeing people as spinning gears.  And with gears, the way that they interface with each other is to fit together and then turn in tandem using their teeth (ok, it sounds weird when I write it out like that...).  Of course, maybe not all gears are compatible with each other (analogy doesn't really carry that well into the actual mechanical engineering...), maybe there is some interfacing problem, maybe the ratios are wrong or one gear needs to be seated at a certain distance away which doesn't work for the other one, right.  I feel like people have different strategies for dealing with these incompatibilities, of course you have people who just move on and find other people who they might be more compatible with, but then you have people who didn't really do that and instead they reasoned that they must be the problem, so they just started sanding off all the rough edges and then instead of a gear they end up being more of a wheel.

And of course wheels have less edges to get caught up on, they're smooth and useful, but like, you can't use a wheel as a gear anymore.  There's nothing to interface with, so yeah, there's less friction, but there's also no potential for actually achieving anything anymore.  And now you're in this really weird spot because now you realized that you still can't connect to other people, maybe you need to just "add on" teeth that you can use to interface with others, or maybe you just need to "subtract" even more by cutting out from what's left.  But both of those feel pretty bad, right?

That I think is what is tricky about being a "people pleaser" or whatever.  You can get stuck thinking, well either I keep people pleasing and then that sucks, or I just start being mean and selfish, and then that sucks.  You can replace "people pleasing" with any other manner of thing too, like for me there were often times when it was like well I can't really be a girl, so that sucks, but then if I try to just be a guy that sucks too.  But there's like this other way of interfacing with people that is neither "providing them with value" nor is it being selfish.  I guess it is a less "capitalistic" and "value-driven" way of relating to people, which paradoxically IS itself a form of value, which I think again is what is often confusing.

Anyways... 

I feel their silent judgment, the spite in their voices.  These are the kind of memories that leave scars, their mark on your psyche a cruel reminder of a thing that you wish hadn't happened.  In the past I think there was a part of me that craved escape, maybe vengeance, from these sorts of things, but never really understanding.  Even now, I feel that I am judged as "lesser" for that.

Sometimes, like today, I wonder if their judgment is right.  Before I can remember that words belie only their face value, they twisted around, making me question whether the light I glimpsed in the distance was real.

But there has always been something so comforting about standing in stillness on your own.  It is something that is paradoxically both lauded and frowned upon, but regardless of that, it is in these times that safety can be felt, that growth can manifest -- or not manifest.  It is true that we all grow, that we all constantly shift, that it is human nature to evolve.  But not every ledge crumbles, not every castle melts, not every grain of sand slips through our fingers -- not in the moments that we choose to remain.

There was a time when I think standing against the cruel grasp of time and loss was a sort of martyrdom, a contrarian attitude and victimhood for what I thought was to be left behind.  But beneath all of the anger there was also always truth in solitude.  Tranquility is a feeling that can be cultivated, and this is my way.  Maybe not your way, maybe not their way, but my way.

And when I find myself at the still lake once more, I can see through the world for what it is, see the wholeness in myself, see that you, and me, and all others only speak from our small little bubbles of localized truth around us.  I can understand that their judgment, just like the judgment that was passed on me before, and before that, too, comes from a certain set of values and principles.

It's not necessary for anyone to share or support your beliefs.  Yet, it is also not sufficient for you to simply carry them forward blindly.  I ultimately changed myself because of others, yes, but it was not because it was what others thought I should change.  It was...different than that.  My growth can only stem from a certain place; I'm sure it is the same for you, and them, and everyone else, too.

It is tempting to give up on dreams.  I think, in some respects, it is necessary.  But "giving up" maybe doesn't necessarily describe exactly how it ought to be.  We cannot strive for more when we are put in a situation where we are down on our backs.  "Shame" is a whip wielded by many masters, a poison found in many forms.  It is something I can walk away from.  I see the goodness in myself, even without the support of "her" shield.

But, thinking about her probably can't hurt either.  She has grown so much over the years, too, alongside me.  I've never thought about her as someone who was desirable, just simply someone who is strong.  Someone who was worthy of appreciation.  It is often easier to appreciate the positive traits of others than it is for yourself, after all, right?  But I know she would reflect those appreciations back at me, in her own way, if she could.

It's still going okay.  I have my 5th match coming up for ALTTPR and I've been trying to cram for that to make sure I'm prepared.  Fortunately, it'll be a morning match this time, so I won't be spending the whole day anxious about it like last time.  Obviously I want to do my best and win, but I'm trying to also remind myself that losing is a very real possibility and that I shouldn't really come in with set expectations here, no matter how tempting it is.

I got my first clear of Ravenswatch on Nightmare (the highest) difficulty, so that was nice and fun.  Felt good to check that off for one character, at least.  I kind of had a shaky week in general where I got thrown off by a number of things that happened, including my power and/or internet being cut at awkward times.  I dealt with a super annoying Rhythm Quest bug too, really frustrating to spend time on but at least I've ironed it out.

The dating app stuff continues to be something that I seem to have an ok attitude with.  These apps are in this weird space where everyone kinda just seems to have this presumption that they're this sort of necessary evil somehow?  I think that was a real turn-off for me I think, in line with the way I've viewed a lot of things in the past, actually.  Like, why should we settle for things that we don't really want in our lives?  That kind of feeling.  It's like when people talk about how "networking" is really important and maybe it pushes kids to go to "networking" events and also treat it as some sort of weird necessary evil.

Look, as I grew up as a child and a young adult I understood very well that sometimes you just need to work the system and play by the rules, but I think there are cases where sometimes people are so used to that mentality that they end up making new rules for themselves that don't actually need to be there in the first place.  Maybe frequently it's all because of falsely assumed shared values and a pigeonholed view of what everyone's aim should be.

I dunno what else there is, really.  Things are rolling along, as they do.  Somehow I haven't felt the terrible sort of existential or just acute loneliness in a while, which I'm grateful for.  I'm not actually sure why, probably just I'm doing enough healthy things to keep engaged with my life, either that or I'm just stuck on the treadmill enough to not really notice it.  But I guess I won't complain about it too much. 

Things are going okay.  I wrapped up a fun/busy weekend full of activities and am feeling thankful that Monday is a off-day for me to just chill and maybe work on Rhythm Quest a little, maybe play some ALTTPR or other stuff.

It had been a long long while, but I finally got around to making my own shoyu tonkotsu ramen again.  It turned out great!  Some components definitely could have stood to be slightly better, but the broth itself turned out excellent; bumping up the pork bone quantity definitely was a good call.  I've still got probably enough leftover for another 4 servings, this time I'll definitely make myself a simple miso tare because it's been way too long since I had a proper bowl of miso ramen.

The ALTTPR glitched mentor tournament continues and we've just finished week 4, where I became the only undefeated runner after a super jet seed that I finished in only a little over an hour (jeez...).  Although the seed itself was not super "rewarding" in terms of the fact that we only made one or two real decisions (and I don't think the would have mattered a ton in the end; I would mostly be on the right path thanks to general good routing principles and non-botched glitch execution regardless), it was satisfying to have yet another tourney seed turn out well, particularly after I had struggled with a lot of my practice seeds over the past week or so.  There are two more weeks left, so I'll still try to lock in for those, but at this point hopefully some of the pressure will be off (?).  It sucks because despite being completely prepared (more and more each week, even), I still struggled with a lot of anxiety.  Competing just isn't natural for me, I guess.

I'm finally back to development on Rhythm Quest, though again it took a little bit of a backseat over the past half week or so.  But it feels better not having any devlog posts since I don't have to worry about seeing people ask "when is the game going to be done" every couple weeks.  I'm finally working out the publishing / artist copyright flow, which is probably going to involve multiple big chunks of work, but at least I've started on some of them, including trying to set up a verified artist system and submission page for that, as well as in-game integration.  Another big part of that will be handling unverified artists where the user needs to provide their own audio, and that's a whole other can of UI worms, but I digress...

I played through an indie game the other day and it really strikes me how every time I go like "oh hey a game that was made by an indie dev" I get to the credits and actually there's like a team of people who helped out, plus often a whole bunch of kickstarter backers or whatever.  And in my mind when I think about the "credits" for Rhythm Quest it's more along the lines of "Hi everybody, thanks for playing the game, so this is usually where you'd put the names of everyone else who helped work on the game or make it possible but uh, it was literally just me (and a bunch of community translations I guess)".  Maybe Stardew Valley is that one exception that proves the rule...

I could talk about some of the other stuff but honestly nothing seems that interesting to me to recount or drill into.  I'm apparently headed to a short trip in MEX coming up so that should be interesting; at least it's less far than the other trips in the past if nothing else.  Bon Bon Ball and VBall are coming up; a TODO item for me is to make sure I have my makeup routine figured out since I got one or two new products I need to work in.  My hair care routine is actually kind of undergoing revision too, as a long while back I figured out that the shampoo bars I was using really weren't doing great things for my scalp, so I've been trying to find something else to settle on.

Besides ALTTPR I'm mainly just trying to achieve various challenges in Hades 2 and then here and there making some attempts at nightmare difficulty in Ravenswatch.  It's all been going just fine...it was good to have a break of a couple of days from the ALTTPR practice as well, since I was really grinding quite hard, but it'll be fun to get back at it this week too, I think.

I could talk about the dating apps stuff but there is nothing to really say about it.  It's about what you would expect, the main thing that's different is my attitude I think, in a good way.

But yeah.  Overall, I think I'm doing okay for myself...

2026.01

https://ddrkirbyisq.bandcamp.com/album/monthlies-202601

Since outgoing links are not really a thing anyways, I'm going to take a stab at using these monthly artworks to inspire blog posts to put out there.

2025 really put me through the wringer, I was faced with some tough challenges and situations that I felt trapped in. The end of the year was a time for hibernation and recovery after being worn out and beaten through.

After a lot of negative emotion, some sickness, and a slow journey to reclaim positive energy for my own life, I'm emerging on the other end of the year divide, in 2026. I feel changed, but not necessarily in a way that is bad (for once). I think I always was a staunch believer that you don't have to push yourself to grow up or let go of things that you aren't ready to yet. But I guess after a certain point, something shifts and you just =are= ready.

2026 has honestly been pretty good to me so far, though it is hard for me to say that without mentioning the tragedy that happened -- one of my two pets left this world and I wasn't able to help her stay with us. It still makes me sad to think about, but it was never really any doubt in my mind that life would still go on.

I don't intend for my monthly illustrations to serve as a reflection of my life (they are just practice), but this one perhaps captures the essence of what I am feeling as I move into the new year. I am cautiously emerging from slumber into a new, softer light, hoping to carve out my own peace, as I always have been known to strive for.

Here and there (usually while folding laundry) I listen to various psych or life coaching videos, recently Charlotte Morabito's YouTube channel which has had a lot of talks about how to get out of problematic people-pleasing behavior or how to cultivate real connections and relationships.

I think I always knew that trying to pursue connections by being useful or valued or providing service (and trying not to expect in return) was not "the way", but the thing about breaking a habit is that it's hard to just "stop doing X" when you don't have a different behavior to replace it with.

...but I think maybe I'm finally starting to get it.

But why?  Why couldn't I save you?  Why did you have to go? 

So I'm doing pretty well, but also pretty sad.  Both are true, almost assuredly.  I'm doing more good than bad, but I can't for a moment deny the pain of it.  It's not so much that I feel that it's my "fault", it's just sad that things didn't work out, really sad.  Of course, I could wish to go back in time and change the way that things happened.  If I could, I perhaps would.  But everything and everyone comes to and end someday.  The only thing you change by rewriting the past is the number of things that happen before that.

With the other friend that I lost, it was both easier and harder for me.  Harder, in that we were closer.  She was a real friend to me, and I to her.  But I had already said goodbye, as well.  By the time I saw her, it was already too "late" to change anything.  There wasn't much for me to even think about regretting.  Here and now, I keep on telling myself that I did everything right, but somehow, it was easier for me to think that back then.  I think it's because I played a different role in her life.

It just wasn't "supposed" to be like this.  It should have been different.  That's probably not true, but I can't help but feel that way anyways.

ALTTPR has been good, at least.  My standards for preparation and thoroughness seem to just be in a different place than of my peers.  It's an interesting situation to be in.  But I guess, it's not unpleasant to have this type of experience, too.  It's reassuring and confidence-inducing when you can just learn everything yourself and understand things thoroughly in a way that makes you feel secure, rewarded, knowledgeable.

Everyone was helpful.  I just wish it had been enough.

Anyways, it's been a weird sort of up-down mood.  In the same day I felt energized, upbeat, heartbroken, happy, sad.  Both motivated and unmotivated.  Life used to be more lonely, more sad, more stressful, but perhaps, also less tragic.  I'm a little tired of pain.  Sure, it motivates me to ignore the things that really ought to never have mattered that much in the first place, but that's not exactly a satisfying motivation.

I almost forgot that dance is supposed to be starting up tomorrow.  We'll see if I end up making it out.  I won't blame myself it I don't; I won't force myself to at all.  I'm, perhaps, done forcing myself to do things, at least for a while.  God knows I lived through enough of other people forcing me to do things.  It's not worth it.

I keep on meaning to write here but end up getting sidetracked into other things.  I've been continuing to play lots of stuff, whether it be more ALTTPR practice and prep, or the two roguelikes (Hades 2, Ravenswatch).  I'm slacking on getting started with the actual work I need to do (Rhythm Quest, pixel art), but honestly, I can't really blame myself because extenuating circumstances came up.

White Chicky is in trouble and she's currently in the "house hospital" seemingly not enjoying life too much.  It's been a long couple of days involving some lengthy drives to the vet as I tried to help her out.  The good news is that we have a treatment plan and some things that may help, it's kind of up in the air what really happens from here, but you know, having a plan of action is nice, at least.  Where we ended up is a little more optimistic than it may have seemed at some points, anyways.

It's interesting to think about how much time you "ought" to have spent on another living creature when they're wholly your responsibility.  It'd be easy to feel that I should have been more responsible and more involved in her day to day life to notice that something was up earlier, but I think it's equally valid to say that I've done pretty good considering the situation and my relationship to her.

I did try doing some drawing last night when she was temporarily set up in my room (chicky hospital bin has since been moved).  Was definitely hard to focus, I'm glad I didn't give a go at like, trying to work on Rhythm Quest or anything.  I wasn't a fan of what I was coming up with so I started over.  Hoping to just do some still life tracing or something straightforward like that.  As for RQ, I think it's right for me to just take it easy right now.  I've had a lot to deal with, it's not a bad thing to take more time for myself.

Maybe tomorrow I'll try to make more progress on drawing, but the main thing is I'll have to make sure I'm feeling prepped for my ALTTPR match.  That should be fun, at least.

The feeling that you're gonna be okay.  That you're getting it.  That you can be proud of yourself.  It's not about surpassing others, but about meeting your own standards.

I've been doing well, but somewhere along the way I guess I forgot to spend time being sad.  What feels bad is that even those certainties that usually seemed to anchor me across these sorts of times seem like they don't really matter that much anymore.  It's not that they aren't still there, it's just more like, what of it?  Yeah, I'm me, and that carries a lot of value, for myself and others, but what difference does it make?

In years past I used to feel like I had been abandoned but I don't really think I feel that way anymore.  I don't really feel like I'm a victim...I just sort of exist.  Maybe it's just a sort of spiritual malaise catching up to me.  I am tired, not mentally, physically, or even emotionally, but spiritually.  I don't know if I can remember feeling this sort of apathy toward who I am.  It's really strange.