Posts like these are hard for me to formulate. I don't mind baring my soul to an audience, and it's not like I'm ever not introspective. I've just never had the knack for finding the right words to match just how I feel when I think about an entire year's worth of events, especially that of 2013. The best way that I can think of as a launchpad for a blog like this is to remind myself of where I was at this exact same time last year, and it wasn't exactly a pretty picture. 2013 for me was not that different to 2012 in my experience, in that both were emotional roller-coasters with extreme highs and lows. However, I genuinely feel that while 2012 ended on a bleak and uncertain note for me, the end of this last year could not have been more satisfying.
When I graduated from college at the end of Spring in 2012, I knew as I sit in my folding chair among the endless throngs of my classmates all packed into that auditorium that my childhood was over. Not at the hands of some crippling or mentally-scarring trauma, but that from that moment forward, I could no longer be the child I was so accustomed to. While I still feel that my three years at SCAD were among the best that I've yet had in life, and that I was more productive than I had ever been up until that point, I still had very little sense of accountability or responsibility. Any free time that I had outside of classes were usually spent hiding in my dorm, killing countless hours on video games. Graduation, and my subsequent life back at home, was a much-needed wake-up call. I have since abstained from most video-game playtime, and I don't regret it in the slightest. But at the time I faced a void I hadn't been confronted with since my high school graduation a mere half-decade earlier: "What am I going to do now?" My quarter-life crisis had yet again reared its ugly head, but this time it seemed that no amount of bootstrap-pulling would alleviate the monumental sense of dread and anxiety. At eighteen years old, all I was expected to was work my retail job without complaint, take some courses on the side and apply to a "real" university. Now, I had to take everything I had learned and use it to start my professional career. Easier said than done, of course.
Anyway, by New Years Day of 2013, I had essentially given up the notion that I would even land a real job in my industry. I was tired of my futile efforts, and depleted from all the rejection letters from what few studios bothered to respond to my inquiries and the complete lack of recognition from everyone else. Worse yet, I couldn't even find other jobs in retail, and the one I had was calling me in for fewer and fewer hours. On one hand, it was frustrating, especially considering that I had no plan for the upcoming year, but on the other hand it was liberating. Like lifting a great weight off my shoulders, I could instead focus on my personal work and collaborations with other young and hopeful artists, instead of spending my daytime hours in the misery of sending out even more applications. Of course, I did have two potential job leads, which I would then prioritize over the myriad of other studios across the country. One of them happened to be Floyd County Productions.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, as is usually the case, I couldn't be hired by Floyd at the time. And I cried like a baby. It was the closest lead I had in over half a year of searching, and it was gone. Back to square one, which was exactly where I was afraid to be. I told my other lead about the situation, and they asked me to come in for an interview. This was a place that promised me work for the past few months, and I didn't expect much to come out of it, thanks to all the success that I was having before this meeting. Right there, on the spot, I was offered a temporary freelance position. My first job in the industry. I didn't cry this time, but I will say my spirits were higher than they had been in many months. Coincidentally, this was around the time that the long-term independent animation project that I had been involved with, "Double Rainboom," had finally wrapped up its production and was released to the Internet. It would mark a farewell to an experience I had given a full year of my life to, and to the doldrums I had found myself in at the time. Rainboom gave me something to with my time other than panic about my failing job search, and it allowed me to learn techniques and skills that were barely touched upon at school and to be even more productive than I had been on my own coursework. Now I could use that skillset and animate advertisements that would be aired on television, something that I thought I would never have the opportunity to do.
My patience and diligence was finally rewarded by the end of that spring when my connections at FCP finally got back to me, and asked me if I was still interested in working on a new project for them. I couldn't think of a simpler way to express "hell yes," and took the occasion of visiting them at their office in Atlanta. I felt like Charlie in Wonka's chocolate factory, being able to explore the insides of one my favorite "small" animation studios in the United States. I made sure to remind my interviewers of how urgently available I was to work at their company. And yet, when I returned home that weekend, I felt utterly defeated yet again. Surely, my endeavors weren't going to yield anything promising, no one was impressed by my flattery, and I was going to be stuck with my foot in the door for another year. Of course, I took that attitude with me to work that following Monday, even as I happened to open my inbox that morning, and there it was. My acceptance email from Floyd. I had "made it."
I didn't cry this time, either. In fact, I thought for the longest time that a devious prank was being played on me. I did get a little misty-eyed breaking the news to my family, friends, and co-workers though, all of whom had been my greatest cheerleaders. The hardest part was knowing that I would be leaving them all to move to Atlanta in a few short weeks, without their comfort to get me through any more tough times. My childhood had ended months ago, but now I felt that my adulthood could truly begin, and all the trials and tribulations that come with it.
From that scorching summer to this blistering winter, I have been happily working at Floyd County Productions, rewarded in more ways than one for the work that I love and surrounded by some of the most humbly-talented and friendliest teammates a rookie like me could ask for. And hey, living independently of my parents and paying for my own wants and needs is a nice little bonus as well. And that once looming giant that is my student loan debt shrinks a little smaller every month, no longer the specter that haunted my waking dreams. And now the new show that we've all toiled over for half a year will be ready to release this month. How many people, even within the field of animation, can say they scored two jobs, directed their own handful of commercials, contributed to a YouTube video with millions of views and helped make a cartoon series for mainstream television? There would be no convincing the person I was a full year ago, I'll tell you that.
However, with every success there's disappointment, and this year also marked the end of another major part of my life. What started out as sweet quickly turned toxic, and for the sake of my emotional and mental well-being, and I had to leave what was becoming a steadily-worsening situation for me. I won't go into details, other than to say I don't regret the decision I made, and have been much healthier for it ever since, but any one who wants to ask me about it may do so privately.
At the end of 2012, I looked forward to the new year with very little hope. Hope was a luxury that I refused to waste time and energy on. All I knew was, that if I was going to get anywhere beyond my situation in life, I had to ignore distractions like hope and keep moving forward. Now, at the end of 2013, I couldn't have more hope even if I asked for it. And I still neither need nor want it. The last year was proof that I could achieve what was I aiming for if I grit my teeth and worked for it. I have amassed a swath of new experiences, from software to socializing, and I feel far-better equipped to deal with the challenges of the present than any time before. Instead of fearing the obstacles, I welcome them, in anticipation of learning something new and seeing what I can accomplish with a little extra effort.
In conclusion, if I have any new years resolutions, it would be thus:
(1) If something goes wrong in my life, I won't needlessly despair. I'll pick myself up, dust myself off, and do what I do best. And if that doesn't work, I'll become better at what I need to do. If I learned anything from that past year, it's that effort is everything, and that you won't achieve anything if you don't try in the first place. There will be unexpected setbacks, embarrassing failures, and times where I'll be confronted by my own limitations, but I'll be damned if I don't make it to 2015 without being able to say that I worked hard anyway.
(2) When things go right for me, I won't let the success get to my head. In this field in particular, I've seen it happen far too often. People who gain a whole new sense of self-entitlement from whatever miniscule victory they've performed, and they expect to be heaped with unconditional praise from their new-found fans, and respect from everyone else. People like these rarely function well in the real world, especially when they have to provide for themselves, or god-forbid make small sacrifices to attain something they want. I hope I never become as egotistical as some of those that I've personally witnessed, and I like to think that it was multitude of positive and negative experiences in my life that will keep me down to earth.
(3) STOP. WORRYING.
(4) Now that bygones are bygones, get back to personal work again. It's about high time that I stop being afraid of changing my comfortable little routine and try to stay busy in my free time. Fearing failure is no longer a good excuse, and besides, it used to make me so happy anyway.
Thanks again to all the wonderful people in my life who stuck by my side through all the bad times and good, and if not, then take care and farewell. I just hope you too will be able to look back on a year of your life and be proud for yourself, and that you didn't feel the need to make others proud for you. And as always, stick to your true friends and family; they know best.
Also, I now have exactly 11,100 songs on my iPod. So there's that. Seeya!
