2026 has been a terrible year for me (and my number one struggles).

As 2027 is getting close around the corner, I want to reflect on this year. For me, this year has been the worst, probably worse than 2023/2024. I did get back to drawing last week, but, prior to that, I haven't been drawing at all since July; my last drawings I shared back in August were drawn in July. I also want to mention that my depression had gotten worse than last year and I nearly had thoughts of "leaving this world". For personal reasons, I don't feel comfortable putting out why I feel like this; only my dad, who I still live with, knows about it. 

I was afraid of making this post and a little scared to put this out there, but since 2022 or 2023, whatever year this started, I had a spending or buying impulsive problem because I think around the time, it was the year I started to feel down for the first time. My main go-to site was eBay for 4 or 5 years and I had positive experiences with most of the sellers I bought stuff from. However, sometimes I would end up with items that were defective; for example, I bought this rare DBZ vintage clock that actually talks when the clock strikes 12. When that happens and if the clock senses light (there is a light sensor on the clock), the clock would say a random phrase from one of the DBZ characters. While the sound portion of that clock works, the hands portion of the clock wouldn't work at all, even though the seller's video clearly showed it working. You want to know how much I paid for that clock? $100 something dollars. Yeah. Other times, a seller wouldn't ship the item at all after I paid for it; this happened to me twice with a GBA game and a pinball game and I did get my refund and I would buy that same item from another seller. To me, eBay feels like a gambling addiction or an addiction to alcohol (and I don't drink or smoke). I get excited when I purchase it and then later, depending on the item I bought, would feel regret and sadness.

Because of my constant spending on eBay, a lot of money I had made from when I first sold my comic and volume 2 + any in-person sales from last year when I attended those events went down the drain. This year was way worse, especially on my birthday. Almost every month, I find myself spending $100s of dollars; most recently, I purchased the giant Chococat Build-A-Bear which arrived on Halloween because this year, they made him online exclusive and I didn't want to miss out on him again like I did last year (my friend tried getting one for me as a Christmas gift but the in-person BABs were sold out) and a rare vintage stuffed animal I kept a watch on eBay for months, which was another $100. I did talk to my dad and mom about my spending issues and I blocked eBay from my life by uninstalling the app off my phone and kept away from similar sites to it. My dad is right, eBay is junk and not the same (the front page of their website having live streams now looks like the app Whatnot which I heard a lot of negativity around on YouTube, mostly in the Pokémon TCG community, which I'm not a part of). I also recall during my talk with dad, I said this: "No one cares about my business. No one cares about my comic. Every time I promote my shop and art commissions, no one buys anything". And while I said that, I broke down in tears because I kept pushing for months and months. Running a small business is hard, especially in this terrible economy right now with everything getting expensive and tariffs and all that. I am holding off from getting volume 3 of my comic printed because the company I used, Comix Well Spring, shut down a week after I completed that volume; I believe this was back in June or July.

I had to cancel vending at this year's Grit City Comic Show (and I can't get a refund either because it needs to be within 30 days before the show, if I recall; luckily, my mom sent me $95 to make up for it and when I paid for a table last year, it was a discount) because my dad wanted me to and because of my spending problem, I can't pay for food and he doesn't want to wake up early in the morning to take me. It will have to be another year. Also, when I was there last year, there were so many vendors, it was big and I felt as if people want to buy fanart than my original works. To me, it felt like a competition. I am still looking for small events... and that's been hard too. I was nearly going to be at this year's Chibi Chibi Con 2026, but because their vendor applications were full, I couldn't vend. I chose not to go at that con this year because I honestly feel left out seeing the other artists who got in and also, I had a traumatizing experience with a male cosplayer who did something to me without my consent; he was banned from the convention but that moment left me scared.

Running this business and my spending issues have been my number one struggles. I'm still never giving up with this business, trying to get SaGia out in more comic shops, promoting when I can... it's hard, but again, I'm never giving up. I hope I am not alone with my spending problem and I learned my lesson from that because what if there's something in the future that I really want or an event I want to go to.

I also haven't voice acted for months because of the fear of rejection; last year, I was accepted and it was my first voice acting project, but I was disappointed when I found out that it was just for some background laughter that's gonna be overlapped with other people laughing. I submitted around 10 or 11 auditions last month through Casting Call Club and never got accepted in any. It makes me think, "is my voice not good enough?". But, I was happy when someone on Instagram reached out to me asking if I would like to be in their LEGO horror project, which I accepted and had a blast recording her lines.

That's all I have to put out there, I hope you understand how I've been feeling this year. I am unsure if I will be blogging for the rest of 2026, if not, I will see you in 2027.