Before 2024 comes to an end, I’d love to take a moment to reflect on all the changes in my life that happened this year. I think the majority of these are beautiful transformations, even if they perhaps haven’t been the easiest for me to navigate. I’ve learned so much about myself this year specifically and have grown more into the person I’d love to be. Continuous growth and becoming someone that I would look up to has become so important to me.
Healing my relationship with creativity and art. In the last 6 or so years, I’ve unintentionally came very close to severing my passion for creating art through only working on commissioned artwork for clients. I completely neglected creating any personal art and stopped making art that had some kind of meaning to me. I also almost entirely created digital artwork (which is not inherently bad, of course) but it made me stray further from what got me into art to begin with: being able to share a story. Creating commission artwork has been an amazing job, but it is only a job. It is not a source creativity or storytelling and left me feeling like a massive part of me was missing.
Coming to terms with the fact that I’m likely autistic and how much that’s changed my life. For some reason I never allowed myself to make the connection between resonating with my autistic friends struggles and the fact that I am probably autistic myself. I always figured I felt that I could identify with these struggles because of my diagnosed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I thought these occurrences were just overall neurodivergent experiences. Until one evening recently I was sitting alone and it suddenly hit me ━ everything made so much more sense. Even though I’m highly likely to have autism, for me it’s important to not fully claim to be autistic unless I receive a diagnosis. Diagnosis’ are quite expensive, so I’m not sure that will happen anytime soon for me, but that’s okay. Just having an overall understanding of why I am the way I am has helped me so much.
Unfortunately with this realization came a lot of regression, which I’ve heard is very common. I’ve found socializing much more difficult, which in turn, has severed a lot of my friendships. My social battery feels like 1/8th of what it used to be. I used to be able to sit in calls for hours in the evenings and now I can’t even bring myself to call someone for an hour or two. I think a few things have lead to that point, but my neurodivergence was the final straw. At this point sometimes I even find streams overstimulating. I hope this is something I’ll be able to better navigate in 2025 but it’s been very frustrating that I’m unable to do something that felt “easy” a few months ago.
Stepping away from social media and how much it’s benefited my mental health. A side effect of coming to terms with my neurodivergence is suddenly these more “superficial” (for lack of a better term) things like social media, streaming and content creation have become meaningless to me. I promptly deleted my Tiktok and Instagram, deleted Twitter off my phone and I focused my attention on growing a platform on Bluesky. Twitter has made me feel so hopeless and anxious in the last few years. Getting away from it has been so much better for me.
I’ve also switched the type of content that I’m consuming. I’m more interested in learning things like gardening, more about insects and botany, learning new skills like bookbinding and attempting more traditional art and journaling. I’ve become so much more interested in physical things I can hold with my hands over digital and watching other people create and learn new skills. Some YouTube channels I’m really enjoying lately are Rewilding Jude, a channel about a queer man named Jude who dropped everything and purchased an old cottage, Roaming Wild Rosie, a woman who bought an old cabin in the Swedish woods, Samuel Alexander, an artist who handcrafts gorgeous wooden pieces in a series he calls “Calm Carving” and Four Keys Book Arts, a channel that focuses on not only book binding from scratch, but also rescuing old books and restoring them to their original state.
Of course, I still love videogames. But the way I’ve been enjoying games has been a lot different as well. I used to be stuck in a “I can make content out of this, I can’t play it” cycle with the fantasy of one day streaming something. It’s now important to me to take time for a game and play it mindfully ━ to really experience the story in it’s entirety and with my full, undivided attention, instead of using gaming as a form of dissociation along with other media.
Starting my Ko-fi and what that has meant to me. Starting my Ko-fi has been a huge, fulfilling part of my career path. I was so afraid of pulling my mods off Nexusmods and uploading them elsewhere, but I really think it was the best decision I made career-wise this year. I feel so much more freedom with what I create and I don’t worry so much whether or not the masses will enjoy my work. Instead I cater to those who have a similar aesthetic to things that I enjoy in game, making it much more fun. I also receive so much more endless support on Ko-fi from my members and even the people who are downloading my mods ━ some people choose to send donations and tips when they download my mods that are listed for free. I’m so, so grateful. This gives me so much freedom to focus on my mod creation and less on trying to find commission work to pay my bills.
2024 has been full of ups and downs, an immense amount of growth and also unfortunately also some loss. But I genuinely think I’m on the right path to where and who I want to be. I no longer have an interest in masking and hiding pieces of myself from the world. I want to live my life in the most truest way possible, without restrictions, shame, embarrassment or fear of being “cringe”. Thank you so much for all the support this year and I’m convinced that 2025 will be just as fulfilling. I’m excited to see what the future holds and what I’ll be able to share with you.
Lune, rooted 
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