This is my last post on the SDMB.
I had mentioned I would be leaving in a post in another thread, and was going to let it go at that, but with the whole recent banner ad brouhaha I was afraid that the few who might even notice my absence after my subscription expires on Monday might think I left in a huff over that or some other triviality. My real reason for leaving has nothing to do with this board. And it’s not as though I think the majority of posters here give a rat’s ass if I stay or go, or even know who the hell I am. I’m just sensing a passage in my life, and wanted to mark it in this way. And if that’s not MPSIMS, I don’t know what is.
I used to go to the AOL Dope area frequently, I may have even chatted from time to time, I don’t remember. I joined the board went it went independent, and posted a couple of things. But I got married that year, and got caught up in wondering who would be our first leader in the new millennium, and then the attacks, then I quit my job. So I was absent for at least a year and a half.
Then in early 2003, my sister, who had over the previous months suddenly begun to suffer strange leg sensations and then a seizure, was diagnosed with an aggressive primary brain tumor. Later the shuttle Columbia fell apart, and we ramped up for a war in Iraq against my better judgment, and I just felt like I needed a break from all the emotions I was feeling about things I had no control over. I returned to read some classic Cecil materia as a distraction, and came across the message board once again.
I’ve been an addict for four and a half years, with about a six-month break in there somewhere. When a relative dies, especially before their time (and don’t they all die before their time?) you do a lot of things that don’t make sense, that aren’t very constructive, some of which you even end up having to seek forgiveness for eventually. Me, I dove into the Dope throughout my sister’s illness and passing, and then simply couldn’t leave. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time and mental energy here, and seek to minimize the appearance of my addiction by attempting to balance this place with my other commitments, which, as many of you know, does not work as well as we’d like to think it does.
Next spring, my wife and I will be expecting twins, if everything goes as planned, our first children. I have much to do for my job, and a grad project to complete which will either put Google out of business and make me faaaabulously wealthy, or, well, be just another grad project. Lots of positive things that require my utmost attention. It’s not fair to any of these aspects of my life or to myself to compromise them with extra-curriculars. And allowing myself the ability to post here is a luxury I shouldn’t be affording myself at this time. I must bid the Board a fond farewell.
So I just wanted to say thanks.
Thank you, Dopers, for years of great reading, meaty arguments, and intellectual discourse the like and abundance of which I shall count myself fortunate to encounter again.
Thank you, Chicago Reader, for deciding that devoting and diverting what resources you had, limited and flawed as we may often find them, to this venture, was worthy of them.
Merry Christmas, you old Building and Loan!
Later. It’s been real.
