Hello, blogosphere.

Come in. Thank you for coming by. It means so much to me, and I … well, I have something I need to tell you. It’s important, and I didn’t want to do it over the open crowded connection of the public library. No, only the privacy of my own broadband would work for this, I’m afraid. Yes … yes, it is serious. Please, sit down, won’t you? I think you should.

Blogosphere, I wasn’t completely honest with you last time I spoke to you of my time away. Wait, please! Don’t freak! It’s not what you think, beloved blogosphere, truly.

I know, I know … you have no reason to believe me now. Everything is unsteady, shaky, uncertain for you. But listen before you react, okay? Let me tell you what happened, see if you can understand.

See, I don’t very often talk about my life with … and please, be calm now … other web sites. Yes, there are others, blogophiles. I’m sorry; I want nothing more than to tell you you’re the only site, you’re the only set of pixels I’ve blanketed with text, the only cybercorner where I hang my hat. But I’d be lying to you if I said those things, I’d be adding to a deception that will only be more painful when revealed later. Better to air it out now, have it on the table.

I had other websites before I met you, blogosphere. I’m sorry, but one of them is still with me. I’ve broken with most of the others — honestly, I swear it — but there is one that … well, I can’t explain it. It’s there, it just keeps hanging around, and try as I might, I can’t shake it, dump it, get rid of it. In some weird way, I’m addicted to it.

I can’t tell you the name. I can’t give you the URL; I just can’t. I can’t look you in the eye and see the expression you’ll have. I don’t want you to do anything rash, blogosphere. I love you too much. So we’ll leave the site anonymous. Just know it’s there, all right? Know it’s somewhere out there and for whatever reason, I can’t quit it. I just can’t. Like the “cowboys” in Brokeback Mountain.

Oh, I can tell you some of the reasons I can’t leave it. For one, I have a subscription there. I paid for one myself, but it expired a few days ago, and my current subscription was bought for me. That’s right, some of them love me there too. When my subscription ended, while LOML and I struggled, couldn’t get online and were between paychecks (and didn’t have the spare change to use for frivolity like that anyway), some of the members banded together and bought me subscriptions. Two of them got me three-month subs, one sprang for a year. Yes, a year. So now I’m subscribed through November 2009, all just from the goodness of their hearts. After that outpouring, after that expression of genuine warmth and love, how can I turn away from them? How can I just walk away from something like that? You understand, don’t you blogosphere? You can see that, can’t you? Your heart is large, tender and warm. I know you understand.

And, they were there for me, blogosphere. When I couldn’t get to you, when I wasn’t able to access you here like I needed to, like I wanted to — the other site was there. I could reach it, share things, and get reactions. I’m a junky, my darlings; a junkie dependent on response, feedback, critiques and praise. Yes, praise. There, I’ve said it — I like hearing my work is good, being adored and coddled and stroked. I can’t help it, blogosphere, I’m human! HUMAN! No matter my distaste for saying it, no matter my desire to be otherwise, I am human, and I have needs! Please, you have to understand! You have to! I just … couldn’t be without it.