Yes, I'm being slightly ironic when I say happy. I can't really make things any nicer than they are, and several friends told me that writing about the last year might be therapeutic. So, I might as well say it. This year really sucked.
I'm writing this partly for the newer Spindrift readers who might not know what's going on with the comic, partly for my old readers who've been such a huge support and who I'd like to keep up to date, and partly for myself, in the hope to find some peace in getting it off my chest.
For full disclosure: I'm about to pour my heart out about the things that went on in the 3rd Spindrift year.
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At the start of this Spindrift year (October 2013), I completed chapter 1 and launched the new website. Afterwards I went on a hiatus, preparing chapter 1 for print and chapter 2 for production: touching up the script, roughing out the first pages and so on. I was also preparing my Kickstarter campaign, which was scheduled to go live early 2014. I took a few months to sort everything out, but what I didn't disclose is that I was also recovering from being seriously overworked and unhappy. I had been juggling freelance gigs with the comic and side projects, working through many weekends in a row, making 70+ hour workweeks. My dad, at one point teased me, that I was writing my hours with a fork. I half-wish that was the case. Besides that, living in Germany away from my friends and family, and working pretty much all the time, had started to take it's toll.
So I took it easy from October till the end of the year. I canceled some freelance gigs and projects - which I found very difficult- and turned down every new project that I was asked for -which was even harder-, except for the few that I felt I could handle and believed would make me happy. It was effective though, I felt a lot happier and more energized. I had managed to finish a small buffer for the upcoming chapter. Spindrift's Chapter 1 book and the Kickstarter campaign were coming together nicely as well. During the holidays my sisters and I decided that 2014 was going to be a better year for us. Feeling a bit more like my old self again, I kicked off chapter 2 on January the 30th.
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On February the 11th, my youngest was driving to work when traffic suddenly came to a halt. The person driving the car following her didn't hit his breaks in time.
When my mum called and told me that Marjo had been in a serious accident, my sis was still in surgery. The doctors were doing everything they could to stabilize her, but I had to come over asap. It's hard to describe that moment. You hear about those horror calls, but it's always distant. You never think it will happen to you, until it does.
I managed somehow to pack some random stuff and once my husband got home we jumped in the car and drove to the hospital. It's a 4 hour drive from the city in which I live, to my family's. And I can safely say that those 4 hours, waiting for a call with news, hoping that that news will be positive, were the longest of my life. I tried to convince myself that everything would be ok. My sis was strong and healthy, and at least as stubborn as her two siblings. She would put up a fight. But the hours passed without a call. Up to the point where I knew in the back of my head, that it could only mean the worst and that my parents didn't want to tell me over the phone.
I got to see her that Sunday, two days before the accident. I happened to be in the Netherlands because I was filming our Kickstarter video. We were working on a table which she had designed for her new apartment -my sis would have moved the week after-. It was too cold and windy to work outside, we got chilled and covered in sawdust, but we were having a good time nonetheless. She was super excited about the upcoming move, we laughed a lot, I don't even remember what we talked about. Finally, we made plans to have coffee on the balcony of her new place soon, and said goodbye.
My sis was 24 when she died. She was happy, doing brilliantly really. She's one of the most charming people I know (her smiles could work miracles). I'm so proud of her, and thinking about the future that was taken from her breaks my heart.
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The first weeks following the 11th have become a bit of a blur to me, and I still find it difficult to talk about those days. It isn't that I don't want to, rather that it feels like trying to make sense out of days in which nothing at all was making any kind of sense. It all felt so wrong. All I can really say, is that I'm intensely grateful to our family and friends, who've helped us a great deal.
Eventually I had to go back to Germany and pick up my responsibilities again, which turned out to be easier said than done. Back at my parents' house, there was a constant run-in of people checking on us, seeing how everyone was doing. At my place, nobody besides my husband and perhaps one or two of his colleagues even knew what had happened. I made due using the magic of the internet to talk to my family and friends at home, but I would be lying if I said that it was easy. I spend the first week or two cleaning the house and making home improvements like a madwoman, because I really didn't know what to do with myself.
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Sadly, things didn't get much easier. We lost two more people in this past half year. My husbands grandma passed away only a few days after my sisters funeral. She was a wonderful strong headed, chatty lady who thankfully lived a long and fulfilled life. And in May a dear friend of the family -or uncle, although he technically was no such thing- suddenly passed away in his sleep. Me and my sis grew up together with his daughters (our surrogate cousins). I still tear up if I think about what they must be going trough.
Soon there will be another hole in my heart. My aunt is terminally ill. Her initial treatment went really well, which thankfully allowed her, and us as a family, to make the best out of the time that she had left. This summer her cancer came back and she isn't doing well.
My aunt has always been a huge inspiration for me, and I'm grateful that we had the chance to make a lot of good and powerful memories in the past months. She helped me to deal with the loss of my sister too, I believe it's her openness and courage that kept me from collapsing under the weight of everything that happened.
I fear she won't be able to read this. But if you do, Petra, know that you're an inspiration to me, you give me strenght and hope. I love you.
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That leaves me here, a bit of a mess, pseudo-celebrating my comic's 3rd anniversary with the gloomiest of blogs. It isn't exactly what I had in mind. I had rather announced my kickstarter's date. But this is the way things are, and I think you guys deserved a look back, explaining why this year has been such a slow year for everything Spindrift.
I want to thank all my loyal readers for sticking with me through all this. I can relate to the frustration that goes with an irregular and infrequent updating schedule and I can't thank you guys enough for being here! Spindrift readers have been a huge support for me, the messages I've received, comments and notes, and just the fact that there's people out there reading and enjoying my work really made all the difference in keeping me going, no matter how difficult it was at times.
On a more positive note: Part 2 of this blog will be about my progress, and a look towards the upcoming Spindrift year. I needed to talk about the bad, before I can move on to talking about the good. <3
-Elsa Kroese