Okay, Riot, I'll step up to the plate and explain myself.

Yesterday, I preliminarily told a couple of people that I think I may be done with DL.

Allow me to explain. I'm not a geek. Sorry, but I'm not. I didn't know HTML until I got in here and a year later I only know a couple of things.

I've never, to this day, bought anything, online.

I've surfed the net since '95. I get my news online, I read the onion, I check tour dates for my favorite bands, occasionally, I sneak some porn. But I had no idea there were communities of people meeting online! ::GASP:: That concept, to me, was like video dating.

Video dating is something I've heard about, I joked about with friends, but I never did it. Same with a personal ad. If you're bored, you read them, you never place one or answer it. At least I wouldn't.

So when Toastgirl e-mailed me from college over a year ago and gave me the link to her diary, I was fascinated. It was so great. We didn't have to call or write to catch up. I could sit at my desk at work, and paste her URL into my browser (didn't know I could bookmark or click on the URL) and read what she'd been up to.

After a week of this, I realized, I could sign up for a diary too. So I followed the directions explicitly and I became Partygirl.

You can see from my first entry that I didn't really know what to do. I just wrote to see what it would look like when it came up.

I wrote sporadically, kinda like how I write in my real journal - because I never have time and I never think about it.

But then, I passed my URL on to Marnie2000. Again, I thought it would be a great way for my friends who were far away, to keep up with my antics, without sending a mass e-mail. But Marnie discovered something curious about DL � you could actually READ OTHER PEOPLE�S JOURNALS! Wild, I know;-) But she figured it out and told me and I didn�t believe it. �Where are you finding these people?� I kept asking her? Remember, up until now, I had still been pasting Toastgirl�s URL into my browser. Slowly, I started to read these teenager's blogs and I got emotionally involved in their lives. A 15-year-old hadn�t gotten her period in two months and was absolutely flippant about it. I e-mailed her directly, concerned. And so it began.

Then I added a guestbook to my site. And curiously, I people signed it. I remember the first �real� person who signed it. I couldn�t believe it. And then he told his friend. And that friend told a friend�and my counter started jumping. People were watching. The voyeur in me liked that.

Meanwhile, I had left notes in other�s people guestbooks. I didn�t ask them to link me, but soon some did. I started writing more and more when I learned that people were reading daily. I also started being more careful about what I wrote. I don�t mention names, anything work related, nor anything that could give away my identify and track me down. Although I suppose if you wanted to, you could find me.

Then people started e-mailing me and I surprised myself by forming friendships with people I met on the Internet. I became so consumed with the novelty of it all � because I am such a brick and mortar girl � that I became totally consumed with it. I mean totally consumed. Spending hours poring over journals, like many of you must. Forming abnormal attachments to people I had never met nor will ever meet. I think this is called displaced emotions? Maybe at the time I was bored or lonely and people were writing me and telling me how great I was and I allowed myself to believe them. Maybe I needed to believe them. Maybe I craved a "connection" in my life.

I left the reality and succumbed to the cyberfantasy. I saw these other people, who had met online, like Riot and Cubegirl or Outbox and Grim and I got swept up into the romance of it all. I forgot that this is not my reality - that I don�t belong.

I was reminded that I don�t belong by some nasty techies in DL chat. Yup, I went though a DL chat phrase. I was crazy about it. But you guys know: I�m all or nothing. And I gave it my all.

I devoted myself to this and all of you because you all were so nice, you see. So nice to me. Outbox helping me with this wallpaper I just had to have, because I was so desparate to belong. Others signing my guestbook and telling me you liked my writing and thinking my life was so glamorous, when really, my life is just my life. No more, no less. I guess that�s kind of vague? Sorry.

I am grateful for the outpouring of support I�ve received. I am happy to have met several �real life� new friends, like Riot and Cubicle Girl and the Binx.

But the truth is, I�m not capable of saving the world and I can�t heal all of the wounds in DL. And the truth be told, many don�t want healing. They want to be heard. They want to sort through their emotions. They enjoy the voyeuristic quality of it all.

What I realized, now that I�ve been mentally removed from DL for a few weeks, is that I don�t need it anymore. Maybe it was a crutch for a while. Maybe I needed all of you. Maybe you needed me. Maybe I needed to know that you were watching me. Maybe I needed to tell you. Maybe I needed a voice.

Sometimes, in your life, you can be surrounded by hundreds of people who love and care about you but you can�t find one person to talk to. Sometimes you don�t even realize that you need to talk. And somehow, Diaryland is a home to like minded people that you can talk to. I can�t explain it. But I found you and you found me. And here we are.

When I tell you that I think you all are beautiful people, I mean it.

But I am not sure that I have anything left. I feel good. I don�t need to e-mail strangers or displace emotions anymore. I still like to read my favorite DLer's - that hasn�t changed. But I don�t need to be �in� the community. I don�t need to reach out. I don�t need to make more friends. I am not searching for someone to fill my void.

I guess what I am saying is that, I am ready to go. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but soon. Maybe I won�t leave this site all together. Maybe I will continue to write about my adventures, but I will write for me. Not for the community. Not for love or links.

I am ready to let you go. I want to free you too. I don�t want to keep you imprisoned here in my life anymore.

I am okay. I am flying.

Away.

Be happy for me.

You can fly too.

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