I've been doing this journal for about five and a half years now. What started out as a little hobby for me featuring short posts about movies I liked turned into something I never imagined. Soon my poorly written, grammatically error-filled little posts turned into much longer and less grammatically error-filled reviews. Originally I used to review films only Monday through Thursday, but that evolved into doing at least one review everyday of the week. Now, all these years later I’ve reached a point where two words I never thought I'd ever write here on this journal have a strong chance of appearing, and myself actually meaning them.

Those two words are, "I'm done!"

Now, I'm not actually saying that I'm finished with my journal. But lately I've had this growing urge to end this journal and get on with my life. What originally was a way for me to share my love of film with people around the world (or at least anyone who cared enough to read my work) has become sort of another job, or some burden-filled chore that I dreaded doing most of the time. Before I used to love watching movies, purely for the fun of it and because I loved them so much. Lately, however the feeling has been more along the lines of "I need to watch a movie so I have something to review!" Don't get me wrong, I love watching new movies and getting all sorts of new experiences from them. But I haven't had the time to revisit with a lot of films I've already seen, which is upsetting me.

Take for instance the recent Star Trek movie. There was a recent movie that I loved, and I bought it on Blu-Ray. But because of the way I've been running this journal, I haven't had a chance to rewatch the film like I want to. I keep thinking "I have no time for old movies, I need something new so I can post about it!" This journal feels like it deserves more of my movie watching time and personal attention than anything else in my life, and I'm beginning to lose my passion for movies. Which is a scary thought, since movies have been my life since I was 4 years old.

So for the time being I'm going to take a break from this journal. I'm going to try and see if some time away from this thing will bring back my passion for film again, and not make it feel like such a burden. I'm not sure when I will return, and hopefully my absence isn't too long. I will return everyday to check on updates of fellow RT user's journals, since your thoughts have become my favorites to read over recent years. So until I can figure things out, I'm going back to sitting in the dark solely just to experience movies... and not worry about what to write about them.

- Bryan 'thirdman' Gomez
12/15/09