January.

With this new year I have been trying to take a better mental approach to things.

I realize that I despite my strong will to not kill myself, I have been in other ways. Neglect.
I literally have not been taking very good care of myself. I was really good about being pescatarian, but I haven't been able to do it in a way that made me feel good about what I was eating. I've been so broke with being garnished and all the other financial shit I've been going through that I have to be very thrifty when eating. Granted I suffer a lot so sometimes I splurge on food to reward myself.

Now that a lot of the hard part is done and I am able to breath I am still finding myself struggling with money. I barely make enough to get by. I'm having a hard time even just paying off the debts I accrued while being garnished. I lived off of two credit cards while asking people around me to just be charitable.
I find myself tired of it all. I would love to separate myself from money completely. I have taken steps through the last two years to not be anxious about it. If it doesn't work out then I will figure it out from there.
I do have to say that phrase "I'm just tired of it all" gets repeated pretty often with me.
I am really just tired of "this"
I feel like there is no end in sight. I am just here to suffer and it really fucking sucks. I can't make the best of it despite my efforts. It's hard to be happy and humble when your life is like this.

I can't remember the last time I was proud of myself when it comes to anything other than work.
I think that I am stuck as a cog in this capitalism wheel.
I do feel a lot of good emotions when I do well at work and I think I'm finally at peace with things. I have been working on accepting things as they are and when they arrive, doing the things and moving on. I have been doing a lot of reminders and things in the morning and in bed before I go to sleep.
I wake up and I tell myself I'm going to make it a great day. During the day I hold out and actively seek things that make it good. I do things to make other peoples day better too. Then at the end of the day I tell myself I did the best I could do and try to leave it at that. Tomorrow is another chance to make it.

I look at my stuff in my house and I just want to sell it all. I don't want things anymore. I keep thinking about how it all just fucking sits there, collecting dust!
I need to really simplify my life in all aspects.
I have been kind of minimizing on things already because I want to move and I don't want to haul a bunch of 'shit' around.

So overall I'd have to say that this year has started out leagues better and I am positive and hopeful that things go exceedingly well for me.
I know that with this mentality I will be able to take the baby steps as well as leaps to get there.
Everything starts with a fresh new day, even if you get up at 12pm.

My goals are to really get active. I started the year at 300lbs. I want to be less.
I want to be debt free. I have a lot of consumer debt I need to eliminate.
I want to move into a nicer house or apartment.
I want to stream on Twitch more.
I want to make more art, or attempt to be creative.
I want to just be happy.

This is... Twenty twenty.

There's a trend happening on Instagram. I just jumped in and did it. I dunno.

I drew my Pokemon Sword team as well. We stomped 'em all with 0 defeats. I'm breeding a shiny ghost team. I have 2 out of 6 so far. A shiny Litwick and a shiny Golett. Working on Dreepy, Mimikyu, Honedge, and Sableye. 

Here's a Rathalos piece I did last year. I am working on a new series of them. I have a Deviljho coming out next, when I have enough gusto to get back to it. 

I also finished up this cross over piece when I was playing God of War last year. I really enjoyed the game a whole bunch that I platinum'd it. 

I felt good about October. For the most part.

I felt good at the end of October. I felt accomplished. Like I had done something good.
All I did was make it. I made it to November. What an accomplishment! 

High fives all around. But after it sunk in... 

Here I am, the 14th and I'm a shadow of my former self.

I really have been trying to take an inventory and see what makes me happy.
I've been so dark and sad for so long.
Something said to me kind of put in in perspective. I was told, what happened to your drive? When I met you, you were really passionate about making stuff, and you had this aura, but now it's dimmed, or gone. 

It made me think, like damn, what am I bringing to the table?

I really need to stop wallowing in my shit pile.

It's time to pick yourself up and dust yourself off. 

Get back to making stuff you feel cool about. Get back to doing things you feel cool about. 

Where did it go? I need to go on a mission to mind myself again.

I need to soul search and do some art studies.
I really need to find my voice again. Find my drive and passion.

I need to figure out how to start. 

Welcome to November.

I spent a lot of time recently just trying to realign my artist self.
I honestly do not know why I even call myself an artist anymore.
Real talk, I don't fucking do anything. It had been so long since I made anything that when we get together on art days I will start something but I can't seem to execute.

I spent the last hour going through old drawings and stuff I've made and I looked at it and just felt embarrassed by it all. I'm sitting here at an art club, that I put together, with artists that just /have/ it.
I was looking through my old stuff to kind of re-affirm that I had it too. Trying to prove my lying brain that I am worthy. Or that I am of some kind of something...

I fucking don't. I have nothing. I cringed at my old drawings, thinking I had made something of note. I felt shame, and even just wanted to outright delete everything from my RedBubble.

Why did I believe people when they said I was talented?
Were they just being nice? Why would people just lie like that?
Why did I buy into the idea that I could make something of value?

I've been thinking about it a lot because Tucson Con just passed and my girl friend said she had a hard time, much like I did. What was bugging me was that her artwork is a lot better than mine. Which got me thinking about things. I just confirmed with myself that I just can't cut it anymore. I don't have what it takes.
I foolishly tried to do con for 4 years. And barely scraped by each time. I invested so much in myself only to hardly get by.

It's a reoccurring theme in my life. I think I'm cool, and I do the things and it turns out that I'm not, and I'm just a piece of shit.

I sit here today, certain of that fact. Facing it isn't as hard as I thought. Because deep down I knew I was just pretending that I could be something. Going through the motions, just doing the things I thought were "good" for me.

I really just want to disappear, as if to just reinvent myself or be someone completely different.

I also thought that today could be the day I work on finding myself through art.
Why don't I just create stuff in hopes that I find my voice?
Why not work on stuff that does make me feel good?
But then I remind myself I've been already doing that and it's not gotten me anything.
It's been a charade. Smoke and mirrors the whole time.

Maybe it's just a bout with artistic depression. Maybe it's just a combination of that and actual depression. Maybe it's reality finally kicking in and I'm able to comprehend it.

Either way I feel like garbage and I can't fight against myself because I have no actual ammunition.
The shit is very honest, and real. I can't argue with it.

Sometimes logic just kills your sense of wanting to continue.

I really just need to get this off my chest and put it some where that it can just exist without people making me feel like shit for it.

I realize that I haven't been posting a whole lot of happy stuff. Things are just not going well.
When I finally identify the problem, I make moves to snuff it out.
When I was at Bookmans, there was a co-worker just giving me hell and I tried all kinds of ways to solve the situation. It didn't work. I left. When I was at the tea shop, I worked a lot and covered peoples shifts. I did a lot to help keep myself busy and distracted. I worked so much that when I was finding ways to make the job better, and suggesting it, it caused issues with a certain manager who didn't want anything to change. I left. Working so much really put a damper on me though. When at Zia, I tried the same stuff. I kept moving on trying to find something good for me. And when it was about money, I got more money. If I wasn't very happy, I powered through and looked for something else. I just never felt really good about things I've been doing in my life so far.
Some of the things that bug me I just cannot change.
I absolutely hate the constructs in which we live. I feel so cheated. I never asked to be born, and with that comes all kinds of shit to be a part of "society" which are totally unfair. The fact that money makes everything smoother really fucking sucks. I'm honestly really tired of worrying about it all the damn time.
When I was getting garnished at Alorica, for an old debt which the agency shouldn't have been legally able to collect on because of it's age, really fucked me up dude. I feel so empty. Working so much to get others rich just fucking pisses me off. I'm spending my life and my well being just scraping by. I'm so fucking sick of it.

I just want to feel good about waking up. I want to feel good about existing and I truly haven't in a long ass time.

Going to college was great but before that I suffered a lot with the same feelings I have now. Which at that time made me want to kill myself. If I knew that even 9, almost 10 years later it would be more of the same I should have just fucking done it.

Here I am. Zach. 33 years old. 306 lbs. Feeling very alone. Overweight and depressed. Dejected. Fucking sad excuse of a human. Stuck in the broken gears of capitalism, failing as a middle class white male and falling into the lower class. Getting shit on by everything, the law, the way corporations work, the greed of the society and how truly nasty other humans can be. A victim of circumstance. A trauma survivor with the anxiety and self loathing, even guilt that's hard to live with.

But in reality I'm the Assistant Manager at GameStop, with a loving girlfriend. I have a few very close friends who are a reminder that it's not just me who's struggling and they make it work. I did some dieting as well as other changes and lost 40 lbs since January. Despite some financial short comings I have had a lot of support from people around me. Friends and even people I don't even know. I got a car after a long time. I built up my credit. I worked very hard for it and scrimped on a lot to get it up there! I don't have much of a family after all the domestic violence and trauma. I have my rescue cat, Garth who just makes me feel good when I see him. I hope I am giving him a better life. My job is pretty cool, I mean I get paid to talk about video games. I am not bad at the damn job either, as far as it goes with "sales" and other metrics. I get a sense of accomplishment when I know I did a good job. It just sucks when you don't hear it often or at all.

Things aren't that bad. 

I guess I just wish some of the things I did to help better myself worked out to a better situation for me. Everything I have done to make things better for me ended up hurting me more right now.
I would get a job and shit would turn sour. Or I would get garnished, or something would come up where I just get fucked over. I understand life is supposed to be hard. But didn't I do all the hard shit already, dealing with the abuse I suffered early on? Didn't I already pay into the catch a break fund enough with that shit? I have to work very hard for the little that I have. I am tired. I am worn out. I just want to not have to worry about my electric bill, or be stuck eating top ramen for a month because of some stupid shit out of my control.

I can't post about it because it just looks like all I do is complain all the time, as if I'm not grateful.
I guess I'm not. Being alive is just bull shit anyways. Why fight for it if there's no actual victory to be had?
People are out there doing things, having it harder than me, and enjoying themselves. I just don't know what it's going to take for me to finally be happy.
I know exactly what would solve my shit.
I know it to be the perfect solution! I lied. It's being fucking debt free. Money has caused so much discourse in my life. I can't believe how much it has corrupted humanity.

I hope that by this time next year I am debt free, or very close to it. I hope that I will be slimmer and healthier. I hope that I will have the money I need to take care of the basic necessities of everyday life.