August Recap, or, "How I Became a Grill. (Mostly.)" (Patreon)

tl;dr Local disaster pansexual tries to be productive, instead has a breakdown and figures out she's (mostly) a girl, helps friends and family navigate crisis while in one of her own, and yet still manages to get a few things done??

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For those of you lovely pervs who want a bit more detail and context, strap in. 

The plan for August was to complete half or more of the Xtreme Beach Volleyball sale, make headway on the other commissions on my plate, and generally catch up. This included two weeks of travel to see loved ones, including my boyfriend, my online bestie Coey, and my conservative grandparents who are dying in my rich uncle's basement. 

Ok, I thought, it'll probably get intense at the end there. But I've got my new iPad so I can work on the go, which I've done before. I've got two weeks of seeing Chicago and seeing Boyfriend. We're going to a comics exhibit, spending time in Boystown, and lots of time on the lakeshore. I'll be fine.

Smash cut to me sobbing on the floor of my boyfriend's apartment and admitting I'm probably mostly a girl, that I've been the subject of abuse from awful people most of my life and that I can't keep promising the whole internet and all my friends that Everything Is Fine.

"It's ok," says Boyfriend, "I'm also a mess and I love you anyway and I'm going to take you on a magic carpet ride through Chicago and help you figure yourself out. You've been helping me with all my life bullshit this whole time, why wouldn't I do the same for you?" (Spoiler, I cried again.)

A week and a half of healing work, adventures, magic weirdo stuff, and one spontaneous ear piercing later, I've somehow managed to finish a commission and most of the patron rewards for the month. I'm still behind but like, ok, we getting there. Except now I have to leave and oh no, I'm a puddle again because Nashville sucks, my family mostly sucks, and I don't want to go back. Damn it.

Ok. Cry it out, hug it out, scoop the puddle back into the human-shaped container and get on with it. I'll figure it out, I'll make it work.

So, I drive for about eight hours and see Coey for lunch before crashing at an airbnb. Sixish hours of sleep, a cup of coffee and several read bean cakes later and I'm on the road for another eight hours, holding existential dread at bay with Doctor Who audio dramas and phone calls.

Family visit goes a lot better than I could have hoped, including coming out all the way to my weirdo aunt who was incredibly supportive. But my grandparents are still dying, and that's fuckin weird and hard to deal with, especially when you're magically operant. I didn't really sleep much.

Another six-ish hour drive, and I get home and cry a lot because I miss my bf, I miss Chicago, I miss all the things and I'm afraid I'm damned to be in Nashville forever. I'm stressed out because I have So Much To Do. I left a quasi-masculine nonbinary person and came back an explicitly transfemme nonbinary person, which Wife and I had to unpack and it was weird and hard but also we figured it out.

On top of all that, mom just had an internal defib put in and now it's an open question who dies first in the next decade, her or my disabled little sister. Trying not to think about it.

So, yeah. I'm a mess. But I've got love and support. Boyfriend and Wife are helping me lean into the femme stuff a bit more. I have a purse and some clothes that feel right now, Boyfriend calls me his girlfriend and Wife calls me her wife and I'm making it work. I've got another friend who is helping me out with chiropractic stuff so I can undo the trauma-posture and reduce the pain in my arms and shit. Life, despite it all, is beautiful.

But fuck, y'all, I'm tired. I keep trying to wrangle myself back into Ultra Productive Pornographer mode and the engine keeps stalling out on me. I'm really anxious about a lot of things - finances, people close to me who are struggling, the Backstreet Boys tour that has gone on way too long - man, name something I'm not stressed about. It's fucking me up. And underneath all of that is me feeling like I've let y'all down.

Many of you are waiting on commissions, and the rewards have been comparatively slim the past three months. I want so badly to put out a lot more work than I have been - gods know I'm still dreaming big. The comics exhibit in Chicago lit a fire under my ass and I can't stop thinking about making comics. But just getting the daily work done lately has been a struggle and I'm only now feeling like I've got my sea legs.

I guess I'm just trying to say thank you for your patience and support. I know it's been inconsistent, but I'm still dedicated to making my dreams a reality, of creating sexy art, making people happy with it and getting by on that. I hope you all will continue to stick around and support me while I find my footing.

Some WIPS and soforth will be posted later today. Take care till then!

Much love,

-Xero

P.S. Running with she/they for now, whichever feels right at the time is fine.