When I look back at the 20 years of my life I've lived, it's difficult to register that I've only been here that long. And even then, I can safely assume that the first 4 or 5 are a blurry mess of assumptions, which leaves me with, possibly, a concrete 15 that I should be able to draw memories from... It hasn't been long, but man, do I feel old.

Reflecting on my life, I get a faint idea why. I was born and raised in Alaska for 12 years; moved to Missouri; moved to Idaho; moved to Washington; went to college, dropped out from depression; moved back home; moved to Ontario, Canada. My life can be defined by sets of years spent in different places, and in each, I felt an age pass by. Some were full of triumphs, some of failures. I wish I could say the former outweighed the latter.

I became a pianist, a violist, a singer -- a musician, before all else. I absorbed knowledge, studying, reading, beyond the technicalities they threw at you in public education -- I became a student, and in some ways, a teacher. I learned what it was like to feel the stage, to perform. I learned how to love -- but never how not to. I learned how to have friends, and to care for those that no one else would. And I experienced, in even less time, how to lose it all.

And now, knowing what rock-bottom feels like, I've started over. A new relationship, focus on new goals (art), a new home, a new life. At 20. They say you can't start over that young, that you can't mess up so much beforehand to not redirect the life you had... But it is a lie. There is no age limit on starting from scratch. And obviously, no age limit on the trials, as tame as they were, I had to go through to get here.

But, I am still alive. I made it through my second decade. Now... Time to focus on making the next one better.

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Hooray for art getting done! I've been doing a lot of work entirely on the computer, and it's nice, but takes a lot more work than drawing something out on paper and scanning it in. But, the more used to my tablet I get, the better art becomes -- I just wish my tablet didn't have glitchy issues. The wobbling in my lines in my art is not my hand, it's a malfunction with the tablet, or something to do with the bluetooth connection. I believe the former, because if you draw the same line over and over, the same, EXACT curves in the line will appear.

I'm very happy over the positive response of gotten on the last few drawings. It's good to know that I'm getting better, even if it feels slow to me. I've been on dA for four years, and looking back, the difference in my art makes me pleased. 4 years, I've been drawing. Not bad. Let's make the next 4 even better.