I'm sitting here in my library right now, and I repeatedly finding myself just staring around the room, still giddy at having been able to realize a dream I had for many years now. And even in lieu of the holy-crap-is-this-the-most-fantastic-collection-ever sense of awe I had at the Billy Ireland Library and Museum, that I'm able to do something even remotely capable of being called a comics library makes me inordinately happy.
And within the sphere of comics writing, I usually just sit off in my own little corner, banging away on my keyboard. I don't have a lot of interaction with other folks about my ideas, so I'm left to assume that I'm shouting at the wind. But I wrote a textbook on Webcomics that was nominated for a frickin' Eisner Award! And I served as an actual Eisner judge last year! Even the couple years since Webcomics was published, I've already seen it pop up in the bibliographies of other books!
I wonder sometimes what my teenaged self would think of current me. I suspect there'd be some level of disappointment at not being professionally employed in an expressly creative field and having instead "sold out" to "the man." But being an award-nominated writer, having run several marathons, being an extra in an Avengers movie (that there even IS an Avengers movie!), appearing as a character in dozens of comics, having a smart home more advanced that the one Bill Gates ostensibly had in the 1980s when I first heard of the idea, surviving a lightning strike, literally saving the life of a drowning cousin, being able to 3D print almost anything I want out of my utility closet... Fifteen-year-old me would probably not even come close to recognizing current me; what I've been able to do in my life, both in terms of the technology at my disposal as well as my personal skills and talents, is well beyond whatever I might've dreamed of doing. I've never had a formal "Bucket List" but if I had, I would've had to re-write it several times over with the number of Bucket-List-level items I would've checked off.
I am absolutely bat-shit terrified of what might happen next year. I'm scared hundreds of thousands of people will needlessly die because of idiotic racist policies, and millions more will be irreparably harmed, both physically and emotionally. I think the damage Trump will do to the country writ large will literally destroy it; I don't see the United States surviving as a country beyond 2030. My wife and I are currently trying to speed run as many of our major 2025 plans as possible to build up as much as a buffer as we can against what I think will become a failing economy and a useless, chaotic federal government. We're in a much better position than probably a majority of Americans; we have a number of options to pivot fairly quickly if we need to. I see/hear the struggles some my own friends and family are dealing with, and I help when/where I can but there's only so much I can do. The fact that I was born when I was or graduated when I did or bumped into the right person when I did or whatever random collection of happenstances separated my situation from theirs years ago has led us to very different outcomes with different active and present concerns. From raising trans children to paying for the roof over their heads to even finding a job to begin with, they have challenges I do not. I do have challenges of my own, certainly, but I've also got flexibility in a lot of other areas they don't have to be able to deal with them.
But my wife is in the kitchen working on what I have no doubt will be a delicious meal. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, pumpkin pie... a lot of the foods you might expect for a Thanksgiving feast. There is seemingly no end of awful things going on in the world right now and there are no doubt many more to come. But I am thankful for where I am personally in my life. The friends I have, the things I've been able to achieve (or were priveleged/lucky enough to stumble into!), the safety net I've been able to craft for when things do go sideways... I remain thankful for everything I have.
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