On D&D

I have been playing D&D now for about 4 years or so. I played once when I was a lot younger with my two brothers and my father as the DM. I remember we once had to fight a werewolf and use silver weapons. I also remember that the last time we were going to play,  my father and step mother fought about chicken. Anyways. I'm still playing it.
I'm the DM which offers its own rewards and trials I have to spend a long time thinking of what characters want to do and what they MIGHT do. It is hard because most games I'm learning something new about how I want to  run the games and the rules. I haven't had another more knowledgeable person as a DM for years. This places the burden on me for each game to be a new experience for them and a learning experience for me.
 While it is true I love doing running the game; yet at the same time I like playing a character. My favorite class is the cleric. I like to play them like a tank. Currently, he is a 4th level battle cleric named Balin. Emmy plays too which makes the games more fun. She is a rogue named Emmilicious. When I write a campaign I write it with her in mind. In the current campaign, the five in the group (Kyle, Gordon, and Arthur along with Emmy's and my character) just got the Orb of Shadowfall.
  Playing a character  makes my job as the DM harder. My character has to play by the regular rules and I have to avoid giving him power. At the same time, I KNOW everything that is going to happen and how it will happen. This often results in my character being only useful in combat and in healing.So often I'm taken out of the real roleplaying experience because character via proxy knows too much.
In the next couple campaigns I hope really to give the other players more of a choice and be more open to the world for them. It has already become a large area that can be explored and flushed out. It really makes me feel as though what started years ago in the story being hired to help a captain and then the city of Market town has really grown into a world that is vivid.