I did some unexpected reminiscing/remembering and it just kind of struck me all the things I’ve made it through up to this point.
- Worked nights for 13 months, resulting in some pretty bad depression
- Got in a car accident and toughed it out without a car for a couple months, which made the depression worse
- Used my entire savings to buy my mom’s car from her, locking me into my terrible minimum-wage retail hell for some time after while my finances recovered
- Depression got so bad that I couldn’t take it anymore and took a significant pay cut to just be back on days and feel normal again, and so I could actually look for something else
- Managed to get a new job that paid a lot more and was vaguely relevant to my degree (not really) even though it was a 45-minute commute at the time
- …which was somehow even more soul-crushing than the minimum wage retail hell, but at least I was making a livable wage.
- Found an apartment that I could afford on my own that was close to my boyfriend and had a reasonable commute time to said job
- Gradually lost more and more free time for comics, but I eventually made good on plans I’d made in 2011 and started making pages of The Hues, even if it was a year behind schedule
- Was generally kicking ass and taking names, juggling my comics career with a physically demanding full-time grownup job
- And then two days before I was set to launch The Hues, I got laid off
- Survived on a pittance of Unemployment for the better part of this year, as well as kindness from friends and family
- Worked on comics
- Applied for jobs
- Worked on comics
- Cried
- Worked on comics
- Applied for Jobs
- Cried
- Worked on comics
- Cried A LOT
- Launched a Kickstarter
- Did more crying
- And now I’m doing art for a living technically? Maybe?
I feel like I’ve gone over the hill on a really big roller coaster, but the air is foggy and I’m not really sure what the whole track looks like, I can only see the immediate things around me, and I don’t know how long the hill is or the bottom, or when it’s going to twist and turn.
All I know is what’s immediately before me, and that’s The Hues.