Jeff you know I reached out to you direct, I await your reply but on this, you have not embarrassed yourself. You have been honest and open, a rare thing in today’s world. Sharing those things takes courage. So in no way think that should be a reason to step away from the many folk here, who want to encourage and support you and ease your pain. In whatever form that takes. This place always keeps and open mind and it is what makes it different to the many caustic guitar environments out there. You wore your heart on your sleeve but folk here embraced your comments and offered support. Think about that for a few minutes. Let it sink in. You have no enemies here only friends. Embrace that and hang around. All will be well, 
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This 
Jeff!!
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Honestly guitar playing isnt like train stations, you dont have to announce you’re leaving .
As for over sharing personal info, this community is very supportive and no one else is overly bothered by it dont sweat it.
I’m not a fan of this saying. I find it snarky, to be honest. I can’t count the number of “whatever happened to so-and-so?” posts I’ve seen in online groups. So yeah, leaving announcements can be valuable. We’re a community. I’ve always said goodbye to neighbors when I’ve moved, rather than just disappearing.
I rarely give feedback to anybody on their playing, because I’m just not good enough myself to comment on anybody else’s playing. That doesn’t mean I don’t care.
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Good luck Jeff! I wish you well!
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Jeff, I’m a bit late on this. I feel very sorry about your decision to leave and your thoughts about giving up at playing guitar. So sorry to hear also, that you have to deal with depression and other problems that make you sad. Be assured, I always considered you as such a passionate person concerning your love to music and guitar playing and a very nice member of this community. I would totally regret to see you leaving! I can only echo what Toby already said with wise words…
Jeff, take a break, don’t throw it all away, if playing guitar is what gives you positivity, take your time to recover. It was a couragous step to do all your AVoYPs and also to open your heart towards the community. Nothing to be ashamed in any way. I’m sure, plenty of folks here are waiting for you with open minds.
Whatever your decision may be in the end…I wish you all the best and hopefully you come back. Don’t ever forget, it’s a long, long road for most of us, we stumble and fail from time to time and sometimes we are exhausted and maybe need a rest 
.
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Hi Andrea, @Helen0609 while you were typing all this Jeff posted another new song…
Greetings,Rogier
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Hi Roger
It wasn’t exactly a brew song. Just cleaning out my closet so to speak. I did that one a few months ago and never shared it here
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Hi Helen,
Thank you for the kind words. I will eventually get around to responding to everyone here. I’m just fighting a losing battle with life lately. I hopefully can get back up again someday. Thanks for checking in.
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I’m sorry to hear about your personal problems in life Jeff. I hope you get them resolved and that one day you find your way back to the guitar and the community.
Take care my friend.
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Hi Jeff
I was really sorry to read your post and what you’re going through.
I’ve enjoyed watching your posts, you’ve been so encouraging to me
Sometimes you just need to give yourself a break - you definitely didn’t embarrass yourself! Put your guitar down for a while if you need to but please don’t give up on the life battles. Remember music in some form is magical and helps with so many things.
big hugs and best wishes 
A little late to join in here…
I’m totally agreeing to @TheMadman_tobyjenner Toby’s post, very well said. 
Whenever you feel you want to reach out, we’re right there for you. 
Take care, Jeff, my friend, and be well! 
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Hello Jeff
I had been very sorry to read your post, and I’d like to write a few lines.
Well, we don’t know each other and haven’t chatted yet. I’m still fairly new to this forum, just getting to know everybody and how things work here. But I have silently sneaked around here a lot and have read some of your posts and enjoyed your contributions and performances.
You are a very active, kind, caring, talented and important member of this community.
Not knowing anything about the circumstances that caused your decision, I won’t try to add anything “clever” here, just would like to thank you for your contributions, which had been very inspiring for me as a newbie.
And please allow me to tell you a little bit of my own guitar story, because I once decided to quit playing guitar, too. That had been about 30 years ago, and I hadn’t touched my guitar for these three decades. Life got in the way and put lots of obstacles between me and my beautiful instrument.
But this same life also provides surprises when they are least expected. So 30 years later, filled to the brim with personal ups and downs, to me this surprise had been discovering JustinGuitar and instantly dusting off and picking up my guitar once more.
And now, 30 years after quitting, at the age of 51, I find myself taking lessons, improving day by day, practicing for hours and enjoying all of this like a teenager.
I have learned that in Blues they call it a “turnaround”… and then you are ready for a brandnew start.
Dear Jeff, maybe you’ll just take a little break from playing guitar. You have achieved so much already, and you never know if life’s already waiting for you just around the corner to surprise you with a beautiful turnaround.
In the meantime I’d like to wish you the very best, much light and happiness in your life and lots of kind and caring people near you. 
Take good care of yourself.
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Hey Jeff, a shame to read but only you know what’s right for you. I’ll be hoping it’s an adieu as opposed to a full goodbye. But whichever direction you go I wish you all the best!
I’ve had several ‘setbacks’ over the years. this is the 3rd time I’ve started learning, all my setbacks revolved around family/personal issues. most of those are resolved these days and i’m feeling a lot better about my direction in life in general. All in total I’ve been trying to “learn guitar” for close to 20yrs. it was always life, career, family (I have 3 kids and one with special needs), I coached my sons sports for 10yrs, no time there. Then COVID hit, thought I was going to have plenty of time but no, family relocated from Chicago to rural AL, lived separate for a while during the move, then kids off to college and time was short and on and on with excuses and distractions.
But, like others say, you gotta do what’s in your best interest. you can always pick it up again down the road if the urge strikes. you dont have to play music to be involved with it, pick the level of music that brings the most joy to your life and settle with it. Maybe that’s just listening, maybe that’s just picking up your guitar once in a while, who knows, but you will know when you are there. Good Luck!!!
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Best advice ever!
Cheers
Keith
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Jeff why be done with guitar for some people it takes many years to learn the guitar. It seems to me you are setting the bar really high and playing songs that seem a bit challenging. I know you like kiss as do I but shit the have some tough songs to play . Try playing songs on a level you can excel at then build so you don’t get frustrated and quit.They say your guitar is out of tune and I don’t think so, I think you are hitting your strings to pull them out of tune so why not take Justin’s strumming course and get that down to make that instrument sing, good luck Jeff what ever you decide and rock on.
that was a source of frustration for me years ago when i first tried. I played many instruments in my youth and I actually remember that I could play pretty well so it was very frustrating when i couldnt pick up the guitar and learn that pretty quickly. not really understanding at the time that 20yrs away from playing instruments i had lost SOOO much skill in general, even on my former instruments.
Guitar playing is definitely not an easy hobby to learn. After years of playing I always think oh that will be an easy song to learn, open chords easy strumming, let’s go! And only when I start to learn and try to nail down something I thought will take me 2 hours to learn takes me 2 months to learn to a satisfactory level.
Based on your previous posts I personally think you might have been over enthusiastic about learning songs you like, and of course as rest of us you love plenty of songs so instead of focusing on one for a longer period of time you probably moved over onto the next one too soon. My advice is always to people to limit songs you learn at the same time to max 2-3. And record yourself and listen to those recordings from practice - only when you consider that 80% is done to the level you originally wanted to learn to you can move on.
Wish you all the best in future endeavours. If you ever pick up guitar again I would suggest taking my advice to heart, this will definitely help you progress further. Good luck
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