Bean Bags and Gift Giving (+ Story About Kittens + Why I Stopped Listening to Radio + Happy Holidays!!!)

This artwork was shared as an year-end post, so it brought along a load of story. Please allow me to remind you that the artwork was created in 2022.

The characters of this artwork were same with the previous artworks here and here. To end the year they exchanged gifts and had a sleepover. I thought bean bags would be a nice touch for their coziness in their holiday season.

I personally loved drawing this. In fact, this artwork was the first of the series. I was heavily focusing on their bean bags and the bandana. Yes it appeared again!!! In a different shape and color. Also the background had some details; the wallpaper and a picture board. I personally thought it's lovely, this drawing.

Earlier in year 2022, there was a stray female cat strolling day by day around the house. She doesn't bother us, nor we to her. She's not everyday there, of course, since she was a stray cat. Then suddenly she had three kittens hidden in the bush. We didn't have the ability to take care of them and so far it was fine for them to live there.

One day the cat died. We didn't know what caused it, but through my zero knowledge observation there was no sign of animal attack or poison. Moreover, her location was still in the same location with her kittens, around four meters from them. My best guess it was caused by hunger. The hardest part? Her kittens were around her when we found them. When I and my mom move the body to the burial, her kittens hissing and meowing, basically didn't understand the situation. The cat probably had been dead for three days.

Then for the kittens, I tried to take care of them for a while. I still couldn't afford them, so my effort was really the bare minimum you couldn't put any expectation on it. There was a large box, some old unused clothes for their bed, also some plastic bowls for each of them to have milk and food. They stayed outside the house, but there's a roof above them now. I stopped at a pet shop and consult the shopkeeper about how to feed them.

All of the process of taking care of the kittens was taking around two weeks. We had reached a point where they shyly started to explore inside the house. But one day when I prepare their food, they were nowhere. On the next day, my neighbor told me that there were a little kid and her mom luring the kittens to follow them. Perhaps for a better living, I tried to convince myself. I never see them again.

Getting closer to Ramadan of that year, I got in a short texting session with one of my childhood friend. He was my classmate for once and we were also deskmate (if that even a word). He's married, still with his wife, had a daughter... but I didn't know since when he had this urge to approach me, to have an affair, even. He sent some inappropriate texts and of course I ignore him to the silencest silence.

Also in the same year, my favorite radio station decided to hire a so-called influencer to be their next big radio broadcaster. I didn't know who it was until people around the social medias pointed out his grim, grim lifestyle. He notoriously said in a podcast that he had slept around with 50 girls and recorded them and share the videos with his friends.

What. In. A. Rotten. Brain.

Right after knowing it I decided to throw away my love to that radio. I had been listening to it for 20 years, can you believe it? I immediately slide every radio tuner in my house slightly to the right or left. I switch the frequency on my phone's radio. In fact, now I never listen to any radio anymore. Around that heartbreaking time I kept thinking back if there was any sign of the radio management to go wrong. And I remembered one time I watched their Instagram story that seemed like a cutscene of a podcast video. They talked about FWB lifestyle. I'm sorry but it was very tasteless for a dignified radio station to glorify something like that. When they announced that they were hiring the influencer with a similar lifestyle, that was my last straw.

I also took a decision to cut my hair that year. I had another big heartbreak mid year but even though it was hard to swallow I believed it was for my own sake. So for the first time in a decade I cut most of my hair to start anew. It added a dramatic effect too to my life, so yes I really recommend it.

There were so many things to let go that year: my favorite radio station, the stray kittens I fostered, a childhood "friend" who did an inappropriate thing to me out of nowhere right before Ramadan, my old broken hair. I haven't learnt to forgive, but I've learnt "not my monkey, not my circus".

It is a coincidence to upload this blog aout Christmas holiday right around Eid holiday in 2024. But holiday is holiday. Happy Eid al-Fitr holiday! 🎉🎆