I have to say I wish life were a little better lately. I'm working on just working and staying afloat mentally. Doing this comic book seems a bit selfish and pointless with all that's happening. Things could be smoother on the homefront in a couple aspects, and that forces all participants to sort of step back and take stock in where they stand, what they want, and where things are going. I don't like thinking that in a year I could be by myself, or anything drastic like that. I don't like thinking it because it puts all the other tasks and endeavors in your life into perspective and it's hard to resurrect them. Any death in the family or major schism tends to emphasize the fact that your hobbies are just that and you suddenly start looking at other people who have it worse than you with a feeling of pompitude and egocentrism.

I'm about 30 days away from being 30 years old and it's starting to put perspective on my life. I don't feel old, although Mrs. Austin will be the first in line to comment on my graying hair and snapping joints, but I do feel that from this point on I can't be frivolous with my time. I can't afford to waste efforts and long hours on things that won't help me or my family. I think that's what eventually gets people when they become parents over 30 is they still linger to the vices of their youth but come to a realization that they can't wollow in that life anymore without some detrimental effects. I still want to draw my own comic book, but I just feel like I'm missing the window when I can easily turn this dream into a reality without sacrificing exponentially more than I would have years ago.

Focusing nearly all my energy on this comic, which in all rights is just a couple hundred photocopied pages of chicken scratch, and having so many real life events take place has left me a little empty. Things have happened lately that make me feel like I don't have many friends left, another aging stereotype. My friends are really people I work with or live with and when bad things happen in any of those places you don't feel you have anywhere to go and you feel alone and stranded with nothing to do but sit tight and hope the boat doesn't sink right from under you. It's a nasty, clammy feeling that you can't wash off in a shower or drown with liquor. It's one of failure and hopelessness. It's not a depression, but how a depression would feel, like there's just no escaping the ultimate doom that is the course of your life, so why bother doing anything at all, least of all piddly shit like a comic book that maybe 20 people in all the world will read. It's a big black Nothing that you can't fight off, you can't sell enough crap on ebay to buy your way out of, and you can't put off because there are too many days between now and payday and not enough between now and the due date.

Somehow though, you take a smoke, settle down, drink a beer and realize that this situation happens about 1,523 times in each persons life. They reach a seemingly insurmountable obstacle and they lose all faith until they realize it's not as bad as all that and get past it. Some handle it better than others, some ignore it, some meet it head on, some falter a bit and need help. However it happens, you have to realize, you're not dead yet. Short of total incapacitation, there are usually options, things you can do to right the ship, get back on course. I have to realize that this comic book is mine, it's my outlet. As paltry and plastic as it seems to me right now, I have to keep in mind that to stop this would be to stop being myself.

I just hope I buy what I've been selling here.