Goodbye 2014, I won't miss you.

Well, this isn't the typical happy new year journal I wanted to write as it's more of a way for me to look back on this year and how 2014 has been as there's a few things I want to get off of my chest so I think right now is definitely the best time to do this - it's going to be a long one but let's start.

I'm going to get all of the bad stuff out of the way first; 2014 hasn't been a kind year to me, in fact I would say it's been a horrible and depressing year for me, you might be aware that I'm not on too often but I've been working at coming on more often because when there is a ton of things happening in life it can become pretty difficult to take the time to spend on deviantArt. There have been a lot of irritations, frustrations and just plain annoyances that have been keeping me away from this site - at least from spending any significant time with it, I do come in to have a quick check, favourite and comment on some artwork and then go back to whatever it is I'm doing but I haven't had too much time to reply to a number of comments and notes or make any more artwork because of the problems in life. But yeah, it's been a busy and laborious time for me, having to drag myself through so many tedious and frustrating situations in college, at home, etc. And that's caused me a lot of stress, especially with the extremely harsh deadlines and the insane learning curve on the new college course I'm on as well as plenty of very personal reasons as well but I'm just trying my best to manage what I can.

It's problems like that which have made me, well... Let's just say a lot more skittish and hot-headed than I used to be with all of these problems and annoyances just piling on top of one another. But strangely enough, throughout this whole year it just seemed to be me and a very, very select few people who's having so many problems and frustrations and depressions throughout all of that time whilst all those people around me seemed to be having an incredible time. People having fun, being happy and just gliding through their time and having no problems in school, college, university or whatever. Everything just seemed to be going so well for everyone and they are all just so happy. I on the other hand - well... I'm not happy, pretty much the entire year has been depressing for me because nothing seemed to go the way I wanted it to no matter how hard I tried time and time again to get everything right - everything (Big things, small things, you name it) just had to keep going wrong constantly and that's amplified so much more when everybody else had the time of their lives. It's just suffocating beyond belief and I have had to put up with that scenario throughout the entire year, always having to smile, always having to laugh along, always having to hide my own feelings when all I want to do is just lie down and say 'I'm fucking done.'. I always said to myself "When is it my turn to be happy? When does it all pay off for me? How hard must I have to work to get to where I want?", I did everything I could, tried my damned hardest, I put my heart and fucking soul into everything and even after all that, I'm just as miserable as I was earlier in the year and it seemed all of that work and effort was for nothing. And that's just really heavy knowing that.

I mean, I do this time and time again. I'm always comparing myself to others and I'm told by so many people that I shouldn't do that and I tell myself that all the time and that is true, but when I always see people happy, when I see people getting what they want in life whether they work for it or if it's simply given to them, it just sinks the soul to even further depths. I mean I have friends who are in incredible, high paying careers in the span of merely 1-3 years. Friends who are either engaged or happily married. Friends starting families. And even a couple of them are quite famous here in the UK. And I'm staying behind with studies and trying to make the most out of it before moving on to the career I want and that's a big IF I get the career I want and people tell me that's the best and most sensible thing to do and it probably is in the grand scheme of things, especially being autistic and all that other crap and living with autism is hard enough as it bloody is. You can probably see why I'm so depressed and bitter and angry. You can probably see why I always compare myself to others, it's because having all of these problems and knowing that everybody is so well off just upsets me. Crap like that always makes me feel inferior to everyone else and it's a horrible feeling to have, maybe it's jealousy but for once I just want something to make my life a little happier, a bit easier to cope with. And heck you have no idea how difficult it is trying to find a special someone who has similar interests as I do here in the UK, for me that alone is a nightmare to deal with and that's even more depressing for me (And even when I do find a girl who's into similar things, she's always taken. Each and every time without failure). But y'know, that's just the way things have to be it seems. I doubt I'll even find love any time soon so it's safe to say that I'm just gonna have to keep put up with being lonely all the time. Nothing new there it seems, I'm used to it.

But despite all of that, at least there are some good things that have happened. Not many, in fact a miniscule amount of good things but the big one is that I completed my college course in Creative Media with a merit grade (Equivalent to B+) and that was a huge change for me, that was a huge surprise to me that I succeeded in that and it was that moment that for once, I was actually happy for a change throughout the year that already passed by then (I graduated in July) because while the college graduation isn't what I was looking for, just getting a good grade like that made me smile for a change and it was a lovely change while it lasted and it made me feel good for once. Also another good thing is that I finally got that really powerful gaming PC that I always wanted, I waited years so I can buy myself an excellent PC and finally I had everything I needed and I went full on with a really powerful PC. And despite the problems I had when I first got it which have mostly been fixed now, it's an absolutely wonderful PC. Nvidia GTX 980, Intel i7 5820k, 16gbs of RAM - a very powerful PC and it's everything I could have hoped for, it cost a ton but it was worth it because after so many years of having to deal with sub-par machines, getting a really powerful one is such a breath of fresh air! But of course I got it for more than just gaming, it's for things like video editing, photoshop, 3D modelling, etc and it performs flawlessly. All I need to do now is save up the money for all the accessories I need like a new keyboard and mouse, new swivel chair, a new desk, brand new monitor and of course, an Xinput gamepad for PC (I can use a PS3 controller but it's a little inconvenient). So yeah, amidst all the crap of 2014, there was at least a couple of good things that happened to me. Oh and Christmas was really nice too, spending time with the family and just generally having fun. That was nice too.

But yeah, I want to sum it up here because overall, 2014 has been pretty awful for me. I'll probably go as far as to say it's one of the worst years I've ever had but maybe not since I graduated college with a good grade and got the PC I always wanted, so I can safely they that they were the saving graces of the year because if they didn't happen then it would have been a truly awful year. But since it's the new year, it's time I leave all of that crap from 2014 behind because it's 2015 now and so it's time I move forward and do my best at all the things I want to do. My New Year's resolution is to try even harder in college, become more and more creative with artwork and what-not, be more active on deviantArt to post more artwork and reply to comments more regularly and work on things in preparation for my future career - as well as a few other little things of course. I'm going to work even more incessantly on everything now and just pray to Jeebus that everything goes the way I want it to. Also I want to thank my best friend; Eromena for helping me through everything, she's really amazing so I want to give her some publicity for her cosplay page on Facebook; www.facebook.com/EromenaCospla… - Check her out! She's amazing at what she does!

So if you read the whole thing, thank you so much as it means an awful lot to me and I apologize if this was really depressing and melancholic but it's a year in review and I want to say everything that happened to me personally, so I really wanted to get all of this off of my chest and it feels better now that I've wrote it out for people to read at their own leisure. So, with everything all said and done, let's just leave 2014 behind.

Happy New Year! Let's make 2015 the best year possible!