I have just come to realize that I'm spread thin, and for some inexplicable reason, I made myself that way on purpose. I'm not one thing or the other; I am a bit of this, and a bit of that.

Nobody wants a dabbler. Dabblers are always outsiders. I'm tired of being an outsider or a disappointment to someone (I seem to have pissed in more than one person's Cheerios today) or not good enough. The fear I feel comes from being a dabbler.

This journal is a symbol of that dabbling. I thought I could actually write something that was interesting to me and others as well. I thought I had something to share, or at least to say.

Instead, I turned it into a constant bitchfest. I don't have a voice. I have a constant whine. I know if I'm sick of hearing myself talk, so I can only imagine how the rest of you feel about it. (Also, the occasional unsubscribe notice from Onelist regarding my notify list has borne that out.)

I don't even like writing anymore, because I can't come up with anything worthwhile to say. I think I first realized it when Trinity shared what I can best call a prototype entry for an online journal if she ever started to keep one, before I drove her off like I do everyone else.

I was staggered. I lost the will to write at that point, because my writing - no matter how much I churn out - can match that one entry.

It's a feeling that has become familiar, and lately, on an almost weekly basis.

Because of experiences like that, or the one I had today, or the myriad of little experiences that point this way, I've decided to just wrap this up. For a while? I don't know. Maybe if I find myself somewhere out there someday, I'll try again. I wouldn't count on it, if things continue as they have.

I'm giving up the stupid dreams. The idea of having my own company. The idea of doing new technology. The idea of trying to catch the wave and surf it to the Next Big Thing. It's not in me, the me that I have become, and I can't escape.

Does that mean I've finally let the flame flicker out? Maybe so. But I don't think it's there. People keep telling me that they see some ethereal quality inside me that makes me special. I think you're all just wrong. It's not there. If it were there, my life wouldn't be this way. Try as I might, I can't change it, and in my attempts, in my flailings trying to make a place for myself, I hurt and alienate you all.

I'm sorry.

So I say goodbye with a heavy heart. In a way, I do know I'll miss this. Why, I don't know, but I know that there is no reason for me to, because in the scheme of things I am a grain of sand on the beach, and if I get dragged into the ocean forever by the tide then it is of no consequence.

I want to thank you all for the emails, even though I so hopelessly suck that I never get around to answering email by spending all my time doing nothing.

Most of all, I want the people I've met over the last year or so, who supported me, who got to know me, who brought me joy and confided in me, to know that you will be sorely missed. Those of you I've mentioned, and those I haven't, are in my thoughts often, and I hope that at least sometimes you think of me and crack a little smile.

restlessmind