My site, originally created as a place to lay out my thoughts so I could hear them echo back, became a job and a burden at least a year ago. That’s never what I wanted for myself, never what I imagined anyway.

Since the beginning I made my writing a tedious effort, more so than it ever really needed to be. My nights were consumed by writing and my days by responding to commentors and dreaming up new topics to write about. It was an exhausting task and it was compounded by my own scrutiny, deleting and re-writing whole paragraphs, never being satisfied, always wanting more and never feeling truly accomplished.

By someones standards I’ve accomplished so much, writing for several sites, making many friends and gathering the respect of many of my peers. Now that I’m writing for the first time in over three months, things feel so hollow and empty. To come back home, to write my thoughts, not knowing if anyone remembers I exist anymore…its sad.

I’m now reaping whats been sown by my own hands. Somewhere along the way I lost my passion for this and I want it back so desperately. I let down too many people, people who really relied on me, to write articles, perform tasks and simply do my job, people who have done so much for me, Esra’a, Amira and so many others.

What caused my loss of steam? An association of things, changes in my personal life, a change in my outlook, exhaustion but mostly one thing, a lack of honesty. I’ve never been able to be myself with my audience, most of the time I’ve felt like a ghost writer for myself. I’ve always been burdened with a need to shield myself from my readers for reasons so eerily related to the topics I write about.

Believe me, the faults and flaws of the Middle East are staunchly reflected in our blogging community, often times by the same people who speak out against them. The politics, the backstabbing, gossiping, bigotry, jealousy, extremism, cynicism, and even the tribal mentality are all well represented across the Middle East blogging community.

When I made the decision to start this site and begin writing I made a clear decision that my personal details would be as ambiguous as possible so I could write as freely and honestly as I wanted without the constraints of stereotypes and negative perceptions.

What I found was that these freedoms I tried to preserve for myself became confining and more binding than any constraints I had ever imagined. I have become a prisoner in my own identity or lack thereof. I never lied, embellished or exaggerated, I never claimed to be something I’m not or encouraged any false perceptions of myself. Instead I wrote based on how things were and let people assume whatever they wanted. In return I became a writer who is just short of being comfortable in my own skin.

I want my passion back, I want to let my audience in but I don’t know if that will give me what I want. What to do, what to do?

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