I've always been annoyed by posts where people talk about shutting down their blog. They almost always seem like cries for reassurance of love. I always thought, "Either just do it, and shut up about it, or don't do it--just leave the blog hanging there until you're ready to write again, if you ever are."

But it turns out lately this is the only thing on my mind, so I guess I'll write about it.

I've been thinking of shutting down this blog.

I'm not writing this so anyone can beg me not to do it or anything like that. I just need to get this out of my head so I can process it. I'm not going to make this elegant and it may not even be thoughtful. I'm tired, and my brain and spirit are tired tonight.

This blog has been useful. It started out as one thing, it turned into another thing. Sometimes I miss what it started out as; a rip-roaring discussion forum about sexuality that got lots of linking and slightly under a thousand readers daily sometimes. Sometimes I don't miss that at all. Sometimes I like what it's become, more of a personal journal with wide-ranging subject matter, and a window into my brain as I make a journey I needed to make to heal a lot of old wounds. This format is only getting a couple of hundred hits a day as compared to before, but it continues to seem to help people here and there, and that's a nice thing.

Plus, and perhaps most importantly, it's been a great way for me to sort through my thoughts on any matter of issues as I have made said journey.

That journey isn't over and because of that I feel a certain fear about shutting down the blog.

Another benefit I've gotten out of it is, it seems I've shown myself people are attracted to my original writing. Even though why at this point I need more reassurance of that, I have no idea, since I've had lots of reassurance of that over the years. Yet, I still seem to need it.

But other facts are also out there. Much as I've loved many parts of the experience, and much as I love all the interesting and lovely readers I have and have had:

1) I'm getting increasingly sick of focusing so much of my life online.

2) I feel I should be focusing my time and energy on other things that could bring greater benefit to me in my actively-lived life than this blog does, where no one knows who I am.

3) There are things I want to say that I find now I can't say on here. Which is ironic, because I started this blog so I could say all the things I couldn't say in my real life, about whatever I was feeling. Now I find that I've got a double bind. I have to think carefully about what I can say and do in BOTH my blog life and outside life. I also have to make sure they don't overlap. I can't connect my blog friends to my real life friends and events. I can't connect my real friends to my blog friends. The whole thing is just feeling like a big ass secret and I'm sick of fucking secrets.

4) I'm not honestly sure many people are getting value out of the blog anymore; I really don't know if many people still read it, and if they do if it's at all worthwhile to them--and if that's the case, why do I need a public forum for my thoughts? I don't know; I'm starting to feel like a disappointment.

5) It seems I've never been very motivated to make something out of this. I've been completely negligent about promoting the blog in any way that would increase readership. I don't have the obligatory list of little buttons for the billions of aggregator sites. I don't write the kinds of posts that I KNOW will titillate and increase readership, even though I could. I don't do twitter. I don't care about social networking. I don't do ads. I just sit here and write what's in my head. Why? I don't even know. I guess just to see if anyone's out there, to hear what they think? To just write? Not that that isn't a noble impulse. And I'm glad I've gotten that impulse back; this blog has helped show me my writing instinct isn't dead--that I am still creative and I can write whatever I want to and people will respond. But lately, I've just felt boring--I haven't been particularly proud of what I'm writing of late and I don't seem to have the motivation to write masterful stuff I am proud of.

6) I feel a huge pull to just disappear as if I were never here.

It's that last one that's been keeping me from pulling the plug. There's something weird about that one. I'm not sure why, but it needs to be thought on. Why do I have such a strong impulse to do this? I mean, even if I never write another line, why not leave it up until such a time as my web hosts tell me I have to get off and stop wasting their space, or until my domain name expires at least?

I don't know. Part of me feels like the person I was when I started this blog is gone. I mean, obviously, I'm still here, physically. But the mindset I was in has changed. I feel different now. I'm not sure I want to keep operating under this blog title, or under this "persona," even if it is (or was) very close to who I truly am.

In some way, I'd like to keep writing here, to show the journey from start to finish. To be the complete arc, so people can see how it works.

But in another way, I feel like Miss Syl and Sexeteria are dead. I'm not feeling what I felt when I started, that prompted me to create either of those names. And I just want to move on to a new life, and that persona I needed when I began...maybe I don't need that anymore.

Maybe I want to erase it and pretend I was never there. Or maybe I don't want a reminder of where I was. Maybe it's too difficult to look back on that.

I don't want to lose all my old writing. I've done some damn good writing on this site, I think.

If I started a new blog under my real identity, I'd never be able to refer back to this stuff.

Or I guess I could. I guess i could pull it into another blog with another name.

But why would I even want to start another one when I'm closing this one? And when I feel like I want to erase the feel of the old blog for good?

And if I did leave this blog, I wouldn't be able to go back and look at all my friends' stuff anymore... or at least, not comment...

I don't know. Is shutting down running away, or walking away from something that's gone on too long? Or has it gone on too long.

I have no idea. I need to sit with this more. I'm not shutting down as of yet; but I can't stop thinking about it.

I reserve the right to completely change my mind tomorrow and negate everything I've said here and keep writing as if I never said any of it.

But if someday I take it down out of the blue, at least now you'll have some inkling as to why I may have. Or maybe not. Maybe it'll be for an entirely different reason I didn't include on the list above. There are some of those, too.

I'm tired; I need to go to bed. I'm sorry if this post was boring or all over the place.

I wish everyone much love and friendship during the long weekend. I wish it for me, too.

I've lost a significant amount of weight lately. The kind of amount that makes people widen their eyes in disbelief.

Anyway, it's hit a point where I had to acknowledge I couldn't go on hiding in my old clothing anymore, as it was getting to the point of clown-suit ridiculousness. Everything in my closet hung off me like loose elephant skin.

For those of you who have never been plus-sized and a woman, let me enlighten you: people generally don't go out of their way to make nice clothes for those of us who are. Your selection, if you have any sense of style and don't prefer mumus or "mother-of-the-bride"/retiree wear are very limited. When I was plus-sized, I shopped in pretty much exactly three places. They were all I had if I wanted to look halfway decent.

Now, I'm no longer plus-sized. This means that I can now shop pretty much anywhere. I can walk through any mall and enter pretty much any shop and try anything on. My choices are now limitless.

This should be a good thing, but all I seem to be able to find it to be is overwhelming. And unsatisfying.

I go in, sort through racks. And nothing looks interesting. Nothing feels like ME. Occasionally, I'll come across something that halfway pleases me. I'll try it on. I'll experience delight that it fits, and I'll feel good for a few minutes. I'll put it in the pile to buy. I'll build that pile up in an orgy of excitement that my body works with so many different kinds of clothes.

And then, slowly, I'll re-try on all the clothes I've laid aside one more time. And I'll reject each one. I'll realize it doesn't make my body look that good after all. Maybe it doesn't really fit, I tell myself. Maybe you'll look ridiculous, like a sausage trying to stuff itself into a skin. Or, that's not you, I'll say to myself. That's just the closest thing you can find to not boring that only sort of approximates you. You'll be sending out the wrong message. No one will get who you are.

And I reject item after item until I walk out of huge shopping centers completely and utterly empty handed.

Nothing, either actually or psychologically, seems to fit. Nothing is right. I have a world of selection open to me, and nothing is what I want. I'm looking for something, but I can't find it. And nothing I try feels good, feels right, feels like I can walk around with it and be ME.

And I am realizing now this phenomenon is becoming a larger metaphor for everything in my life right now.

I have to go back to my job today, after more than a week off. I am dreading it with all my being. Not because my job is so horrible. It's actually a good place to work, on paper. But it just doesn't FIT anymore.

Nothing fits. Not jobs, not lifestyle, not relationships, not friendships. I find myself screaming in my mind constantly, "I want OUT. I want OUT."

And yet, I have no idea OUT TO WHERE. I want to ball up my life like a piece of paper and start a fresh page. But I have no fucking idea what to put on that page, and I'm so afraid to mar it with bad prose that was the wrong choice that I feel paralyzed. I am walking around, the world a wide open market of choice, and I can't choose anything. I have no idea what fits. No one makes anything I want.

I hate this. I want something new. I want to understand what I want. And I don't. I just don't.

I want to move, I want to start. I want my new clothes. But I'm stuck.

The anger and frustration I feel right now, I can't even describe to you.

I want OUT.

I want OUT.

Sometimes the thought of blogging can be a pain in the ass, but it does have one fucking amazingly positive aspect to it. And that's it's just ME, raw and uncensored. Always. No one can tell me to refine it or make it better or that I should do it a different way. Or to not talk. People can read or not, and it doesn't mean much; I can keep writing or not, as I please. No one can try strongarming me with threats of firing, financial loss, audience need, or witholding of affection to change the way I express myself or what I choose to say or do on this blog. It's all my choice, and I've deliberately made choices to this point about how to operate on this blog that would protect me from any such influences ruining my ability to speak and act on here exactly how I feel like.

Because sometimes it can feel like my whole life has been a series of situations where I'm being evaluated, and then being told I've done it wrong, or could have done it better. No matter how good I am, someone has to tweak it, or ask me why I didn't do it some other way that they think is better. I grew up with that shit, and then I ironically chose a career that's full of that shit. I've chosen relationships that were all about that shit. I've chosen a life full of my first effort never being fucking enough, never just fucking being appreciated for what's there.

I'm sick of always being evaluated for how close everything I do comes up to par. I'm sick of the sense that there even IS a fucking par. I'm a good person. I'm fucking TRYING. ALL. THE. TIME. Goddammit! Isn't that what's important? The effort, not the execution?

Well, I'm tired. And I'm not your fucking frilly boardwalk prize doll. Stop picking everything I do apart. Just fucking love me, accept me, or get the fuck out. And that declaration is addressed to myself as well.

On days like today, I look back at all the choices and steps I've made in my life and have to fight off a feeling of despair. Why would I have chosen some of the things I did, back when I did? And now, it's so hard to change some of it. For instance, let's say I suddenly realize I've chosen a career that reinforces the worst patterns in my life. The ones that revolve around fueling my negativity about myself. Well. A whole new career? What the fuck will I do and how can I afford THAT? And how about my friends? My relationships?

It's all so much fucking work. A whole life overhaul? Jesus. I've been working fucking hard enough as it is.

I just feel so angry at myself. I feel as if, if I'd been able to make better, smarter choices; if I'd been more impenetrable or more conscious of the forces around me, I wouldn't be in this place.

And there. There's the editorial shit again. As you see, it never stops. "Why the fuck did you choose that? Wipe that; make it better." If I don't choose someone else who will say it to me, I'll say it to myself.

Well, even if I do, at least here, no one can tell me I said it wrong. Or, I suppose they could, in comments. But no one can *make* me change what I wrote because they want me to give them something else. A better, more improved me...who isn't me at all. On here, you get whatever I'm giving out, no more, no less. It is what it is. And that's all it has to be.