“life is elsewhere.”*

after laying awake for an hour writing this post in my head, i've realized i might as well get up and type it all out. i've probably been needing to write this for a couple months now, but honestly haven't had the guts to put it all down, concrete-like. bear with me.

of late, some of my betters, who -- need i say it? -- i greatly admire and adore, have decided to take this whole blogging thing to another level, dedicating themselves to a greater extent to both their writing and audience. yet in the wake of the manifest commitment of others to this blogging thing, i feel more and more that i'm presently not up to the task of even maintaining sweetney, at least not in the fashion i have thus far. simply put, what was once an enjoyable pastime, then a downright obsession, more recently has felt like a burden. i have, frankly, felt a lot of anxiety about posting here lately (or, as the case may be, about not posting here lately), and -- most disturbingly -- i've become slowly conscious of living my actual, 3-D life through some sort of internet-related filter. meaning: 1) i find myself compulsively adhered to my computer, frequently to the detriment of all else (checking email and comments and blogs when i should be engaging with M_, for example), and 2) i've become aware that i am, more often then not, processing my experience -- both in the moment and in retrospect -- for consumption on the internet. thus i am never fully present in my life in a sense; constantly viewing the ins and outs of daily life through the lens of my blog, unable to simply live and enjoy living without hearing the constant drone of how will i present this on the internet? in my head. its become exhausting and unmanageable. and you deserve better. and i deserve better. and god knows my daughter deserves better.

i came to blogging -- first on livejournal, then here -- in search of real human connection. in that sense, the internet has been so very good to me: probably a good 90% of the people in my life who i consider true friends have been gleaned from my experience on the internet in one form or another. but lately i feel my e-life has become unwieldy, and that i'm connecting with no one as a result. the sheer amount of email i receive in a day fills me with dread, but even more dreadful is the fact that over the course of the past year i've gotten some genuinely heart-rending and humbling emails from people who've been moved in some way by something i've written here, or felt a real connection with me or my experience, and i've been unable to find the time to respond to them. and honestly, that kills me, and i'm forever feeling guilty about not being able to manage my time in such a way that i'm available to people (i should add here: available to both people in my “real” life as well as those existing strictly in my online one), and that fact alone has sucked a great deal of pleasure out of doing this. perhaps this is old fashioned of me, but i feel like i need to be a real person to anyone who feels compelled to contact me, and at present i just can't be that, and yet i just can't stop being bothered by it. and so we are at an impasse.

so you see, all of this has kind of conspired to make me reconsider what i'm doing here. and -- before people freak the fuck out -- NO, this is not a letter of farewell. i have no intention of ending what has, in the past, been a great source of entertainment, amusement and downright joy for me, and led to so many good things in my life. sweetney is important to me, let there be no doubt. but i do feel that i need to step back for a while and come to terms with the behemoth i've created and find a way to manage it so that i again feel the joy in it that i once felt. i need to achieve some sort of balance and appropriate proportion i have yet to grasp between my online life and my dimensional one -- suggestions and advice welcomed regarding that, by the way. in the short-term, however, i will likely be posting less as i try to get some perspective and find a way back to enjoying the internet as i once did. i hope to return full-force sooner rather than later, with my head back on straight and the kinks worked out. i hope ya'll will stick with me through this.

thanks in advance for your patience and understanding as i work through my shit here, peoples. and, as always -- and i probably don't say this enough -- thanks for reading.