Hey everyone! It's been a while, hasn't it? I hope you're all having a good time celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or any holiday with your friends and family. And if you don't celebrate, I still hope you're having a good day and spending time with loved ones anyway.

I myself had a really fun Christmas Eve, in fact it was the first truly festive Christmas I've had in years. I've recently moved in with my friend Cloud (https://www.instagram.com/rainclouddoodles/ // https://ko-fi.com/rainclouddoodles) and her family (not officially moved in, but I am living under their roof for now). Them and their relatives were lots of fun, everyone was just having a blast being loud and stupid together.

I haven't been that active online because of this recent shift in my life. I'm still getting used to this new environment, I'm still thinking about what I want to do with my life and who I want to be, where I really want to live long term. This is especially huge for me because I have always been a shut-in when I lived with my family: never went outside because I was too afraid, never talked with anyone, even with my own family, spent most if not all of my time just drawing and browsing online for hours. I've never even reached out to anyone I knew from school, simply because I've never felt like I was close enough with anyone, and I purposely distanced myself because it was just easier to be alone. I was completely miserable.

I do want to change that, but it will take me a lot of time to get used to things. Right now I'm too terrified of everything around me to really feel comfortable enough browsing my phone for hours on end and being active online like before. It's probably a good thing in a way, because even online I was miserable on every site I used. It's crazy. I'm in a completely different state. I'm SO far away from my family. It was the first time I've flown in a plane and it didn't even feel real. I couldn't even enjoy it because I was crying the whole time.

I won't get into too much detail with family matters, but despite not having the best relationship with them, I'm homesick as hell. I've cried myself to sleep many nights for them. I'm not used to living so far away from them, and neither are they. We're just too attached to each other. I've been making my best efforts to have frequent calls with them and open up to them more, and building and fixing up our relationship. Some days it's really hard.

Whether in the future I decide to move back in with my family or not, I think this was something we all needed, especially me. I really needed an opportunity, a push in the right direction to help me move forward in life, and I can't thank Cloud and her family enough for wanting to provide that for me. I also want to make my own family proud. We were broken before, and still are, but the most important thing is that we're working to get better. We are getting better with communication. I want to make it up to them for all these years of misunderstanding, isolation and bitterness.

I don't really know what else to add, other than the fact that I'm even less active online than before because of everything right now. At the moment, I'm drawing less and responding to less comments and messages until I can get situated here. I'm not even checking my feed as frequently. It will take a while. I will need some extra cash while I'm here though, so I'm in the process of opening up smaller/simple commissions (I do not have the time or energy to do full illustrations for commissions right now lol). Stay tuned for that if anyone here is interested.

Thank you all for being patient with me and thank you especially if you've read this far. I'm done yapping now. Please take care and have a Happy New Year, everyone.

Yes, shameless plug time. If anyone wants to donate to my Ko-Fi, I really appreciate it. And if you want a doodle in return, I've recently opened up a new slot for quick scribbles. Check it out! (I'll also accept PayPal and CashApp, if Ko-Fi isn't your thing.)

https://ko-fi.com/tikkitoon/commissions

Thank you again, everyone.