It's come to this: that I should quote titles of webcomics to come up with a clever header. But I couldn't find anything more appropriate, to be honest.
An update after all these months ? Yes, and a direly needed one. Because lots has happened - but then, lots always does if you pay close enough attention. And I always do, and since time in the mind of a human being is measured in numbers of events, my weeks last for eternities. So as much as I would want to, I can't summarize the entire period I haven't updated, even if I could still remember everything that went down. I have to limit myself to the bigger changes.
First off: I seem to be healing, psychologically. I have more energy, I'm depressed a lot less, and I feel more and more able to scramble back up on my own feet. It's still going slowly at the moment and I'm still far from the strong, energetic person I was just a year ago, but I'm also a far cry from the shadow of that man that I was when I was last updating this blog and practically drowning in angst and despair. What helped a lot is that creatively, things have been going fairly well. The Grim DotCom's storyline is progressing perfectly on schedule (in fact, it may be going slightly too fast considering the few things left to reveal this 'season', so I may have to slow myself down for the first time since I started this series), the 'KermisComics' were organised by someone else this year so I could actually just participate, which resulted in at least one page I feel somewhat proud of, as well as a lot of fun with several new comic artist acquaintances. And August 5th is behind me now. That's the big one. Reading back through my email archive over the past week (I've had a tendency all week to clean things up for some reason) I realised I had been preparing for this one evening since February - so for half a year I've lived towards that one spectacular, unconventional and completely mad show evening that it turned out to be. And it was glorious, insane, absurd, beautiful, and at the very least memorable. Audience turnup was also huge, media attention was fairly impressive, the Probeersel.com T-shirts that got distributed when you bought 'my' drink that evening practically FLEW over the counter, and most of my best friends and even some family turned up in the audience too.
One of the end results, since the inauguration of the new nightlife mayors of the city of Tilburg was attached at the end of the evening, is that I am now, well, one of the two nightlife mayors of this city. The perks include that I finally, after eight years, really DO have my own barstool in my habitual bar (where I essentially have lived longer than I've actually lived in either of my two homes in this city, if you add it all up). The disadvantages include having to get used to a very weird feeling when people recognize me in the street - which actually does happen now upon occasion. Point and stare, that kind of thing. But I knew that was a realistic risk and I accepted it beforehand, so I'll just have to deal.
But after the first week 'in function', my mind is already riddled with possibilities on what to do in this new role. Things we could organise, things we could publically protest against, things I could attempt to improve in my beloved city. All this, and the actual August 5th evening, have probably contributed to my somewhat renewed energy. What also helps is that all the love crap from before has also sort of resolved.. or vaporised, mostly. All the confusing situations where things just weren't clear have either been made clear on their or my side, or by changes in circumstances. It may all sound vague, but I'll get into detail sometime soon.
In any case, things have much improved. They're still far from perfect, and I do still have some bad moments, but all in all the only way is up. It seems.