We are so not on a break (Version 3.51)

It's more and more common in the blogosphere these days; people from our "real" lives make these sites more about them than what we know them to be - cathartic, sometimes completely narcissistic, outlets for our creativity, our joy, our loves and our frustration. On a regular basis I see bloggers closing up shop and releasing new urls only to a chosen few, flipping their shingles to the "Nothing to See Here" message, or going on hiatus to figure out whether or not it is really worth it.

And so it is with me.

The pleasure I get from writing these posts is being tempered by the fact that they can also be used, however innocently, to check in on my life from a distance. I recognize the semantics; I know that technically anyone with Internet access has just as much of a right to be here as everyone else. But this site isn't about everyone else. Just as the email of friends past is theirs alone, as are their phone conversations with family, and their letters and journals, this site is mine. And although I understand that this is a public forum, my intention in spilling details of my life is not to have them peeped from afar by those no longer privy to details via my voice, nor is it to hurt anyone I care about through my accounts.

Don't get me wrong - I dearly love these folks I'm talking about. But this is the bottom line for me, and it may sound harsh but that is not my intention: just as reading someone's personal correspondence is an intrusion, something about people I have known but now am not in contact with witnessing my life unfold just doesn't feel right to me, and truthfully, it seems shouldn't feel right to them.

I refuse to let this site become a collection of nothing more than crappy recycled memes and censored notes on my everyday - which is essentially the direction in which I'm headed (yeah, I can acknowledge it). What has been a haven for me has grown to be a burden as I consider - despite what I hope has been demonstrated for many moons to be good judgment and consideration for those I care about - the impact of each and every word. What about the impact of their presence on me?

I don't want to do this, but I feel like I have to.

So here's my "Nothing to See Here" post. I hope to come back sometime in the next month, but I can't say that for sure. When I do, I can assure you it will be with less frustration and hopefully more of the good that brought most of you to this site in the first place.