November Update (Patreon)

Hi,

Note: I'm not gonna try to sugar coat any of this, so I may word stuff in a way that makes things seem bad, but do understand I am completely fine! I want to be fully transparent on what has been happening this year, since everyone--especially those who are silly enough to continue to support the channel the past 9 months--deserves to know.

Remember all that confidence I had at the end of last year and how I already had videos planned out ready to go and this year was gonna be the year that I pushed really hard to put out stuff consistently? Hahahaha, how wrong that ended up being!

So as I mentioned in the last update in May, I bought a house (which I totally am only able to afford because of everyone's awesome support) with a friend in February this year, and moved in at the end of March. The house was good, but old, and needed a lot of upgrades and maintenance. The couple living here previously was an elderly couple, so it's understandable that the place was become too much for them to handle. One of the rooms that needed gutted and redone was going to be my bedroom. To this day, that room is still incomplete just due to how much work it's taken to get it to that point. I don't have the money to hire people to do most of the work, so I've been learning lots of new skills in order to get everything done (if you follow me on Twitter @IsoFrieze, you may have seen a bunch of pictures of me working on stuff, like rewiring the basement). Add in the fact that lots of things are just out of stock due to the pandemic, and work becomes incredibly slow.

So what does this have to do with anything? Well, since my bedroom isn't finished, most of my stuff is still in boxes. Since March. Essentially I feel like I've been living in a hotel room that happens to have my computer in it for almost a year. It's not very good feeling. I'm extremely happy that I was able to become a homeowner, but I feel only just like that, a home*owner*. Not a home*liver*. It's been incredibly stressful, and any time recently that I have had free time where I would normally work on a video, I do something related to the house instead. I want to be able to live in my house after all, so the sooner that's done the better. It really makes it difficult to work because I have the mentality that if I'm doing something else, I'm not working on the house. There's so much work to be done that I haven't even run into a point where there's nothing to do. If I'm stuck waiting for supplies to be delivered, there's always something else to do in the meantime. But! I also get stuck in the back of my mind that I haven't worked on anything related to the channel in forever. A burning thought that I can't get rid of, and I can't bring myself to fix.

In the past few months it's gotten so bad to the point where I really just want to pretend it doesn't exist anymore. You know how some people don't like checking their bank account because they don't want to be reminded how close they are to overdrafting? It's like that with me regarding the channel. I don't want to be reminded that I haven't done anything in months. I've gotten several messages from people who say they are suspending their pledge because I haven't put out anything (which is *completely* fine by the way, I absolutely encourage that!); I don't get angry at them, but frustrated with myself that I *still* haven't done anything. I've been meaning to make this post for ages but I just really didn't want to think about it even. I feel like I'm just complaining, haha.

The biggest reason why I feel so bad is because I can't really afford to suspend the pledges either! I would have definitely done that back in like May if I could. But mortgage payments are still due even when I'm paying for all these renovations, so I can't really do that. I *know* that once everything stabilizes I'll be able to focus better than ever, but that date just keeps getting further and further away it seems like. I'm sorry that I've made promises that things will get back up to speed, and then they just don't.

I wish I could say for certain when I'll be able to work on stuff confidently again. I'm actually starting to reach a point where I might be able to take a break on everything soon. In the past week we have removed a brick chimney, ordered carpet to be installed, installed a bathroom fan, and started to ask around about getting a few windows replaced. I don't have as much stuff that *I* have to do anymore, so I wish I could say that I will be able to actually work on the video that I've had the script done for months. But I don't want to make another empty promise.

The carpet for my bedroom will be the last thing the room needs before I can finally move my stuff in and *live* in the house. It's scheduled to be installed December 21, so hopefully, *hopefully* by then I will start to improve mentally. But again, I don't want to promise that.

In addition to bringing back RGME at the end of this year/start of next year, I have a couple other things I would like to try to do, including making another YouTube channel for music stuff that you may have heard me mention on Twitter. Maybe 2022 will be the year that I wanted 2021 to be? We'll see.

Again I apologize sincerely for basically doing nothing on YouTube this year, and I give my utmost thanks to anyone who has continued to give me money despite of that. I really owe you so much for allowing me to even have the option to be able to work on the place instead of being forced to live in a run down house. Maybe I should do a house tour or something when things settle down so you can see where I put all my time and effort this year.

Thank you so much for reading,
Alex