where i've been

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I recently vacated my slot for mapping in OWC, and I haven’t published any sort of mapping in several months. Even though it’s within my rights to do so, I thought it would be unfair to disappear without a trace, so here I am, in writing.

Long story short, I’ve been shifting my life’s focus onto more tangible things. I found that investing all my time into mapping and art, no matter how much I loved it or how good I was at it, crippled other areas of my life. I didn’t know how to talk to people properly, I barely had a tangible personality for any sane person to talk to, and I knew how to be vulnerable, but only behind a screen and a keyboard. Something had to change.

When I gained popularity in mapping, I was too young to have an actual sense of self. For privacy reasons, I will not specify my age. At that time, I was vulnerable to the weight of expectations; my identity couldn’t be fully formed yet, so I found it in what other people thought of me. I was “a great mapper”. I was “creative”. Whatever that meant. My mapping then shifted from a love for music to expectations of a product. I didn’t realize that shift in my thinking, and so I went all into mapping, thinking then I would finally be happy. I would finally be “fulfilled”, and people would look at me. People would love me.

I was wrong. I burned out.

Desperately, I tried to recapture lightning in a bottle. I wanted to channel “Black Lotus”, and other “peak” works, whatever that meant, despite the fact that I have changed as a person, have had new experiences, and don’t see the world the same way anymore. I wasn’t mapping out of love for a song, I was mapping for the accolades, the awards, MCA, whatever. My image took up my entire life, the online persona totally consumed me until I realized there wasn’t much left of the real me. It took me too long to realize it was all of that what actually mattered, and what would actually fulfill me, was human connection.

I didn’t have that. I was playing a game that I no longer enjoyed, but instead was just comfortable in.

My legacy shouldn’t have been rooted in those frivolous things, but instead in the people that I inspire. The hope that saying, “Hey, this is why I love this song” would get people to understand me a little bit better. (Thank you to the people that messaged me in appreciation of my maps; you helped me realize what actually mattered.)

Several critical life skills went missing and undeveloped because of my obsession with osu!mapping, and I had to shift a lot of my habits because of that. Starting in early 2023, I started attending more extracurriculars, talking to more people, being a part of more things and giving back to my local community. I took up positions of leadership, and for the first time took amazing opportunities despite my crushing fear of failure. All of this was despite my severe anxiety, which I still fight every day especially when I have to talk to someone or stand up for myself. If anyone I know from real life is reading, I hope that my sudden appearance in your life makes a lot more sense now.

I don’t hate mapping, in fact I still appreciate osu!, but the things that I did to myself in response to a community I didn’t belong to make it hard to return. If anything, I want to keep going on the path that I’m on. Every day, I learn a little bit more about how to love myself, how to carry myself, how to punch my antisocial tendencies in the mouth, and how to build connections with people I trust. There is no finish line to healing, but rather it’s taking one foot in front of the other, every day, without regard to seeing how much is in front of me. And that’s where I need to be. Not in the editor.

– blixys
]: )

P.S. This is a severely oversimplified version of what my life has been like. Details have been omitted for the sake of privacy and brevity. Please keep this in mind.