have the panties become too tight?

before i continue with this entry, a quick update on the happenings in my life over the last few months:

1. got a gig in the atl with old employer
2. postponed move to ny until after i get my degree (1.5 years or sooner if i hump it and double the class load)
3. living with the 'rents until september. let's just say i have plenty of new stories, most of which are both distressing and funny...mostly distressing.

aiight, so i'm back at the blog and wondering what took me so long to get back. why am i having this aversion to writing on my blog after years of steady writing (aiight, mostly steady writing.) i was telling a friend of mine how i've become straight up scared of coming here. it's like putting on weight and being afraid to see one's self in front of the mirror cuz you just know you're not gonna be happy with what you see.

have the panties become too tight? am i no longer able to fit into the confines of my blog? maybe that's the problem. i used to see this blog as a way to free the inside of me. now i see it as a cell caging my creativity. i try to figure out why and have a number of theories:

1. it's just not intimate anymore. think back to the time you went to your favorite watering hole and thought to yourself "man, i love this spot...not many folk here and i can just be me...". then you start hearing other folk speaking on your spot and you get a bit scared cuz you don't want it getting all crowded with folk who can't appreciate it. then UT OH...your fam and close friends hear about it and suddenly you realize that time you got on stage and sang to strangers will never happen again because you know one day you might look out past the lights and see a familiar face staring back at you with that "oh HAIL nawl, this fool is up here looking crazy! WAIT TIL I TELL [insert name of fam or friend most likely to fuck up your reputation] about this shit" look on his/her face. crazy to a few folk is harmless. crazy to many means being possibly institutionalized.

2. some of the people i used to talk about now know about the damn blog. see, this is what happens when you have blog folk as friends on facebook. worlds start crossing and next thing you know folk just 'happen' to find their way to the blog...kinda like the nosey neighbor who just 'happened' upon the buried corpse of a victim in the backyard of the serial killer she says "always seemed so quiet...never thought he'd be capable of murder although he DID seem a bit strange now that i think about it. i mean, who makes coffee dressed in only tighty whities? not that i saw it personally but i heard it from someone in the neighborhood..." i think what freaked me out most was finding out one of my blog friends is actually a facebook friend of my very very first love ever. like, how do they even KNOW each other when they aren't even living in the same damn state?!? the world became smaller and in doing so, let me know i'm not as anonymous as i thought i was. scary thought. i get the feeling one day someone's gonna read the blog and recognize themselves in a story and it's gonna be like that scene in 'the best man' when taye digg's character got the beat down (not that it would ever happen to me cuz i'm not self-sacrificing like him. i fight dirty.)

3. i am constantly editing shit in my head. by this i mean, even before the words hit the screen i'm revising that shit in my mind. i can't just flow no mo. it's like there's a mental detector at the entrance to my mind's eye and all ideas are frisked for imperfections before they're allowed to exit. my creative process is currently existing under military rule and nothing is allowed to leave without all of it's expressions in check.

4. i never finish a story and now the blog is littered with the tombstones of tales who died prematurely because i psyched myself out of finishing them because i wanted the endings to be perfect or didn't know how to continue the telling. if you've been around from the beginning, you know the pattern. i'm good for one or two entries, then nothing. i know alot of it is because i'm putting so much pressure on myself. again, it's me trying to perform instead of me just writing. then there are the readers who tell me almost immediately after i start a story "shit, i don't know why i'm even reading this cuz you're not gonna finish it. LOL" they're right.

so what do you suggest i do to get my blog back? is it even possible at this stage in the game? do i shut this shit down and try again elsewhere or do i just shut this shit down period? ANY insight is appreciated as i'm sure many if not most of you have gone through the same thing.