About boundaries… or is it?

This comic was supposed to be about boundaries. I came up with it in a season where I felt my own boundaries being tested, and I decided to make a comic about the experience in order to process things better.

I thought it would be a pretty straightforward project.

The first page (above) was easy. In the comic, my main character is beset with small demands amounting to a larger one, and there’s even a wall in the backdrop to illustrate my adroitness at symbolism. I was proud of this concept at the start. In fact, I pride myself on my boundaries in general. I’ve got a couple of unfinished drafts in Medium about some specific boundaries that have worked well for me in teaching and in life. I’ll finish those drafts someday.

And that is the roadblock that I had creating this comic: I have struggled to finish it. I thought I had a clear vision of how the boundaries-game goes and how this comic should end. I even indulged in a small chuckle* over some of the endings I drafted where the main character finally says, “No!” to the fuzzy-hat request in a dramatic, life-changing way. And yet… it’s been weeks since I started this project and everything I create looks forced once it’s out of my head and on paper. All I have are half-finished drafts with lots of cross-outs, whiteout and anxiety. It’s humbling.