she is but one girl hurdling through time and space (Patreon)

cass and i have been talking about, maybe this isn't starlight's time.
most of the team hasn't been available because school is suffocating and work is suffocating,
and i have this whole hamster wheel about trying to do way too much on the project myself to push it forward vs waiting for people who are ultimately not available because the global economic system is a fuck
cass put it like, last year i had to take a break to sort my shit out.
the way we've talked, now i need to take a break to sort starlight's shit out.
the project is -heavy-.
i -desperately- want to make a tRPG, starlight in particular, but i am here at the start of development, and after 8? months of returning to the project, the engine is still broken and incomplete, we're still at the very start of the game, and development feels slower, rather than faster.
so. idk.
i have this knot in my stomach every time i think about starlight, mostly the idea of talking about it, with anyone, even those who are meant to be helping out.
my options are power through, force it, or back off. forcing it hasn't been working. maybe if i back off, approach it from a different angle in, life, i can do it differently.

so let's say i back off again.
i feel a -deep- shame about the prospect of even setting the project down again........
but it's not like i'm not actually going to be working on something.
because.
so.
when i took that break -last- year i actually started working on something else.
smaller project.
personal writing.
i hope to share it eventually.
last couple weeks i've taken it from writing to development.
been through testing about four? five? different development engines.
settled on godot. godot is nice.

so that's technically a thing i could talk about
but here's my problem

expectations suffocate me.
always have.
part of why the tail end of reborn's development slowed.
but i also feel like managing expectations as far as communicating how development is going on, to the community... to the team... to you guys... is a core part of my job.
at least insofar as i -want- to give back and let you in on how things are going, you all certainly deserve that and much gratitude for helping me out here
but it is ultimately expectation management and-- even though pretty much universally no one has said anything disparaging about my progress and communication or lack thereof-- i still feel destructively cognizant of this probably-not-real shadow of perceived expectation to do
~ s o m e t h i n g ~
and while i would like to brush that off entirely, i would like to just ignore this cloud, this is still my only job. it's a job i still feel passionately about, but it's a lifeline. UBI is still a glimmer in the eye of the people, and a girl has got to eat.

i am so concerned that if i do talk about this new project, then i will just transpose all of my emotional baggage from starlight onto it and then -that's- not going to go anywhere either.
but then what i do ????? simply not talk ????
that sucks !!!!
you guys have shown me nothing but trust and support that far so i am always ping-ponging between "i just need to trust them in turn that they have my back" and "okay but how far can i afford to take that before they feel like im just manipulating them?"
or worse, "what if i'm wrong? what if i am not able to see a project through to the end anymore because of [mystery reasons] and continuing to work on it is ultimately an exercise in not only manipulating everyone else for financial stability, but also deceiving myself?"
...i don't really think that's the case, but... would i?

so.
that's where i'm at.
i'm not idle, but i'm not sure what to do.
how about you?