My well seasoned blogger friend has referred to me in her blog as The Webmistress, she tells me.

I like that, 'The Webmistress'. It sounds like a dominatrix, standing over her minions slaving away at their W3C compliant CSS, sweating under javascript cross-browser issues. I imagine: High heels, PVC clad, whip in hand laughing like an evil cartoon character (I can't currently think of a sexy evil female PVC clad cartoon character, all I can think of is Mumrah, but you get the idea).

However, something went wrong with my career path. I'd like to say I stumbled blindly into the world of web design (and development these days, I can add scripting to my very-unlike-PVC-belt). But that's not true. I took job after job. Interview, contract, client meeting, liaison. I've done it all over and over. I've answered job ads selling my 'assets' over and over. I'd like to blame something or someone but I can do everything but justify my innocence in this situation. I opened my arms to roll-overs. I accepted HTML emails, even encouraged campaign ideas. I even researched into search engine optimisation - that golden word littered throughout freelancers websites, clients desperately seeking the holy grail with the help of someone just like me.

Or perhaps not just like me.

I am a web designer. Admitting that to myself (and increasingly to other people) is like announcing an addiction that must be cured at Alcoholics Anonymous. I feel I deserve a round of applause just for admitting that.

When I initially accepted the anointment and responsibilities with it, it was something you could tell someone without having to justify it. Now, increasingly, I find myself saying 'I'm a web designer, but don't really like it'. Or 'I'm a new media developer', an 'art director', a 'multimedia designer/developer'. Or 'I'm a web designer, but I'm looking at a career change'.

I fit the mould like a round peg in a round hole. On paper. Obsession with Lego. Long running addiction to Star Wars (4, 5 and 6 only). A large collection of Star Wars Lego (lacking the milennium falcon, sadly). But my heart's just not in it.

Now, I'm sat here with my 'last' freelance project on a CD I received in the post today. I'm looking at it and I'm receiving the same familiar sickness of stress that I've suffered from since I began this foolhardy mission into the world of web design. I think: I must have enjoyed it somewhere down the line. But, racking my brains, I can't really find when I did. I enjoyed making little Flash games. Which has so far made up about 10% of my creativity over the past few years.

So here it comes to it: The Webmistress is actually The WebStress. I'd resisted a blog for this long because, well, turning on the computer churns my stomach. It makes me think of the list of edits I need to do on my friend's websites, sites pestered for free or cut price. It makes me think of the deadline for 'really the last freelance project'. And why do I get so stressed when others breeze through their designs, why to I turn into a blubbering wreck when others stand firm in their belief their work is good when criticism is paragraphs of abuse in an email or phone call. Because I don't have any conviction that my work is any good. Criticism for creativity you've given your heart and soul to is hard enough. But criticism for creativity you've given your blood to and held your mind in reserve, drifting thinking about anything other than stylesheets and typeography and interface design is crushing.

I don't think I'll look at it tonight. Well, maybe copy it onto my hard drive. Then pour a large glass of red wine.