What I really mean to say is

I've been quiet lately, I know.  It's not that I don't have anything to say.  It's that I have had a very hard time distilling what I've been feeling into words.

A disquieting thought has been bouncing around in my head and its elusiveness is the reason I've just stopped writing.  I needed time to get a good grasp upon it and mull it over in my mind.  What is it?  Doubt.  Self-doubt to be more precise.

The thought is one that perhaps the direction I am going in isn't the right direction.  That my heart has lead me astray and that happiness isn't the end result of the path I am walking.  That I need to backtrack and go the other way. That I may be wrong.

I've been told that every creative person arrives upon this precipice sooner or later.  At this impasse, a choice must be made to determine where to go from there.  I'm concerned that my choice is to walk away.

I'm frustrated by the quality of my work, it doesn't exceed what I did five years ago.  In fact, it may be worse now.  Then I didn't know any better and yet I consider that body of work as above average.  Now, I know a lot more and it's become harder to achieve even that level of work on a consistent basis.

What material I have in front of me is stiff and inorganic.  It looks uncomfortable and unimaginative.  Sometimes, it's not even sharply in focus!

I'm not sure if it's me or the fact that my equipment is getting worn out.  If it's the former, I know what I could do at this point to fix it and if it's the latter, I can't afford to replace it.

So maybe, as much as I find joy in creating pictures, I can't achieve the bar I've set for myself.  I guess what I really mean to say is that I'm considering giving it all up.  Go back to being a lowly engineer staring at a screen as my social skills slowly leach out of my empty skin, locked up in some isolated corner in my own personal hell.  At least I'd be able to afford all the gear I lust after even if I won't ever have time to use it.