I haven’t blogged anything in awhile. I’m not sure why.

Actually, that’s a lie...I know exactly the reasons why, and I will now share them with you, as if you cared. The whole idea of blogging has always been sort of strange to me, really, I never really understood why I felt compelled to do it back in the day when like 2 people might read it...it was like this weird internet equivalent of being that crazy bag lady with the tinfoil hat standing on the corner screaming about how radioactive hamsters were conspiring to overthrow Bob Hope. Nobody really pays attention to that lady, no one really listens to her and takes her seriously, and yet she keeps on screaming because it makes her feel better. It’s cathartic somehow. Putting shit out there, man, for EVERYONE to see. Sure, they’re not reading it...but they COULD. 20 people, 30 people, 100...they might read what I wrote and they might hate it or like it or be indifferent to it but either way they’re reading it. My private thoughts, which I have for some reason I can’t quite define, made public.

And then something strange happened. People read it. Most of them liked it. People started subscribing, showing up every time I posted something new, strangers all over the world tuning in to hear my bullshit vaguely amusing thoughts about everything. Like, wow. For the briefest shining moment, I felt like a popular girl. Not, you know, The Girl With The EYE...like I was all through the adolescent jungle of high school, or the invisible woman that I grew into living in the middle of a cultural shithole in the part of North Carolina where it’s really fuckin hot and most of the bugs are giant. A little less mediocre, I was, because of all this goddamn talent I’d been hearing about all my life.

Then the bullshit started, as bullshit always does. If I’ve learned anything it’s that the only constant of life if you are not living yours on a deserted tropical island far away from your fellow man is that nothing good can ever remain the same. Because people, when they interact together, are bound to fuck things up. There always has to be some asshole who shits on the party, some drama queen bitch who starts silly high school shit...adults, adults who’ve never even laid eyes on one another...hiding behind fake names and fake photographs, starting shit, stirring up drama, proving right all the rotten, rotten things that you don’t ever want to believe about other people. Those of you who were here for the drama, you know what I’m talking about. Those of you who are reading this now without the slightest clue what I’m talking about, I’m not going to tell the story, sorry, rest assured that it was laughable little kid drama perpetrated by grownups who should have behaved better. It was stupid, silly, pointless, and it was kinda a long time ago.

And yet, it wasn’t. Because I’m a Cancer, and we get our feelings hurt very easily, though we might not always let on. And when we get our feelings hurt, the very first, most natural thing we do is to simply withdraw into that stereotypical shell. Because it’s safe and dark in there and nothing can hurt us. My little toy, my safe little computer world where I write funnies (and rants) and other people enjoy them and feel happy was tainted. It didn’t feel good to me anymore. It felt like...waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the bomb to go off, waiting for the next angry email barrage or the next slew of psycho haters to show up and start leaving nasty comments and harass my friends. It felt like most aspects of my life as soon as I start having to deal with people...waiting to see what the terrible drama will be and how clobbered I’ll be by it.

And then there was the added aspect of...suddenly everyone knew that Ro the Dharma Janitor was ME. My mom, dad, co-workers, relatives...too much. Like, can I blog about sex on Sex Blog Thursday anymore knowing that my parents are reading it? No, thank you, so much for that. If I get frustrated at some situation or another, can I honestly blog about it knowing that whoever is going to read it and get mad...it wasn’t silly anonymous fun anymore, it was people I see every day, my husband, my co-workers, my relatives, having some sort of window into my brain. Like, it was no longer mine. Like, where is the line between blogging and diary, and why the hell am I letting everyone read mine?

Not to say that I don’t love everyone and enjoy all the positive comments from friends and loved ones here and everywhere. Not to say that it wasn’t fun, that I didn’t enjoy it. Not to say that I’m gonna get all emo and delete my profile and shit. Just explaining it to you, all you lovely people who do care about me and who message me every once in awhile to ask where I’m at and why I’m not blogging anymore. I’m tired, I’m busy. I’ve got a little over a month left till I graduate college. I work a lot, which is not necessarily a bad thing but is a time consuming thing. And, all excuses aside, it stopped being fun for me and started feeling like work. It wasn’t self expression anymore, it was something that I felt anxious about...like who is it going to offend, what problems is it gonna cause in real life, what will I say that someone will take wrong or personally or hold against me, will I open up my email to find yet another angry demand that I leave the country, will there be more gang rape jokes...too much.

So. All bullshit aside, this is my explanation, which I felt like I owed to you all. Because I’ve met some lovely people here, people that I love and don’t want to lose touch with. And I’m not saying that I won’t ever blog again, either, though right now I’m not feeling it and I don’t know if I ever will again. I’m just...I don’t know. As a wise friend advised me to say recently, "I have a lot of shit going on, and I don’t want to talk about it right now." So, yeah. Thanks for reading, and caring, and all that.