July 2024 Life Update: Injuries, Family Loss, Mermaids, Collabs and Content

By Skywing Knights // July 29, 2024

My wonderful knightingales, I live! I promise. Life has just been… a major ride lately and I’m not one for enjoying roller coasters. (I’ll hold onto everyone’s bags for them though!) 😉

In any event, because my life has been rather upended, my ability to write or post to my social media has been next to non-existent. As such, I felt a bit of an explanation, along with news about my upcoming plans, might be in order!

Injured

The first thing to uproot my ability to write and post was an unexpected injury that I gave to myself… I think while playing video games. No, I’m not proud. Essentially, I somehow gave myself Cervical Facet Syndrome. (It’s also known as Cervical Facet Joint Syndrome.) This condition occurs when the facet joints in the spine become inflamed or damaged. More simply, the way it was explained to me is that I had a bundle of nerves that got severely pinched.  In my case, it occurred in my neck on my right side.

The result was that because this bundle of nerves became inflamed, it began sending signals to my brain that my entire right arm and hand were in pain. And since I’m right handed… no writing, typing, or doing anything on my computer or phone was not happening. At all. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. I also could not easily move my neck, making it so that I could not drive safely either. Plus, exercising caused me a great amount of pain as well.

 

Recovery and Belfast

It was excruciatingly boring. And painful. But what I remember most was just being bored and irritated that I was unable to do most of the things that brought me joy. Not only that, but because I work at a computer often for work, I had to reserve most of my tolerance for pain for tasks related to my career (my pup’s gotta eat!). That though, was the start of how my writing and social media posts came to a sudden halt.

However, I did everything I could to help speed along the healing process. Once I was able to regain some movement in my arm without feeling pain, I went right into working on catching up on emails, housework, two rather large commission projects, and other upcoming things I had on the books. I continued to struggle with typing, but I was getting stronger and my neck was healing. I even started managing to exercise again!

That was a huge relief too because for about a year, I had been planning a weekend trip to Belfast, Ireland with my mom. So thanks to all the work I put into my recovery, when the day of the trip came, I was well enough to go!

But sadly, life had another curve ball that it would throw my way. And it was a tragic one.

 

A Death in the Family

On May 15th, 2024, my loving Nana, my grandmother on my mother’s side, passed away. She was the head of our family… and one of my best friends. That might sound a bit corny, but… she was. I wrote a tribute post in her memory, so I will refrain from going into great detail here. While I do believe that I will one day see her again, her loss has still been very devastating to me.

Since her passing, it’s been all I could do to just keep getting up each day and trying to remember what I had to do before ending my day by going to bed over the course of the last month. At this point in time, I do feel that I am still struggling with the grief. However, I have gotten into a stage in which I’ve been throwing myself headlong into things that I have to get done. Possibly to ignore the sting, but I also think it’s helping me claw my way out of the depression that comes with loss and grief. I’m still not completely out of it yet and I know I will always miss her. But I’m getting there, so I do believe my writing and 2024 content sharing will resume soon.

 

Under the Sea!

Speaking of 2024 content though, I do have a bit of an announcement! I recently debuted as a Mermaid performer! One of my secret loves has always been mermaids and mermaid themed art. I have followed mermaid artists and performers for years, even though it’s not something I talked about too openly. But having several friends who enjoy the art of performing as a mermaid who encouraged me to join them… well, I did!

In April, I received my PADI Mermaid certification and in early May, my first mermaid tail arrived. It is a beautiful, Signature Manta tail by Finfolk Productions. I have been carefully crafting a ‘mersona’ to use for performances for several months now. So I am excited that it is finally summer time when I will begin working as a Mermaid performer part time. When that happens, I can’t wait to introduce you all to this new siren-side of my art (and heart!)!

 

New 2024 Content and an Upcoming Collaboration

Finally, as I mentioned, I have been working diligently on a number of projects for the past several months. Travel tips and articles that I promised prior to my injury are still coming. Additionally, I might have a few creative writing items for those of you who enjoy those from me as well. During my injury and recovery, I did begin crossposting some of my older pieces to Archive Of Our Own (AO3) and WattPad. So you can now read them on those platforms as well! (That said, I always link to the original place I posted them when linking them back from SkywingKnights.com.)

But perhaps most exciting of all – be on the lookout for an upcoming collaboration I have been working on special for all of you who want to travel to Japan! This collaboration will make your travels in Japan that much more convenient. And it will include a special discount on a critical service that everyone should take advantage of while they’re in Japan. And yes, this is all just for you, my followers and readers! Needless to say, I’m super excited to launch this for you all, so stay tuned!

 

In Summary

So yes, my life took a very busy, and somewhat unfortunate couple of turns these past few months. Even though it’s been rough though, I feel that I’m very close to getting back to where I want to be in life. And this means I can very soon get back to sharing with all of you 2024 content on the things that I love, from travel in Japan, to costume and cosplay art, and even a few adventures in the sea.

Be on the look out for all of that and again, I want to thank you all for your patience. It has not been easy. However, the kindness and grace of others has helped me immensely and I look forward to sharing more new and exciting stuff with you all very soon!

Love always,

~Skywing