Withdrawl

I was without internet and home phone for 24 hours. It was harrowing to say the least. At first I looked at it as an opportunity. How convenient to have that distraction forcibly removed! Why, I could accomplish all kinds of things without the internet beckoning me to shop, chat, surf or blog. I could fold laundry, clean out cabinets, get organized.

HA! I did manage to fold some laundry, but the rest was trickier than I anticipated. I cleaned out 4 cabinets and had things to freecycle, but no internet on which to freecycle them. I wanted to pay the bills, foiled again. I was going to call a paper shredding place, but I was phoneless and anyway, the phone number was in an email which I couldn't get to.

It's amazing how dependent I (and dare I say we) have become on something that wasn't commonplace not all that long ago. I graduated college without using the internet....current college grads likely never cracked an encyclopedia that wasn't online. And I will fully admit to suffering greatly without my link to the outside...because somehow it has become crucial in life that I know what the people I went to high school with are doing at every waking moment, or what city former co-workers should be living in or what movie quotes they know, or who scored higher than I did on Facebook Farkle. (For the record, everyone scores better than me. I don't get Farkle.)

I also have a running chat with my girlfriends that I pop in and out of all day long. What were they doing? What was going on? Who was having what giggle/story/irritation that I didn't know about.

There were plenty of moments when I thought "Oh, let me look that up real quick" only to realize I could not. My mom even wanted me to search for something online for her and of course I was unable.

There is a lesson in my 24 hours of disconnectivity, I'm sure. I did spend a lot of time with my kids and my cabinets do look nice now (I freecycled this morning) and the laundry has been folded. I learned I use my computer more than I thought and can barely remember how I did things before my computer was up and running and connected to the World Wide Web all day. I suppose I should unplug more often.

But I can't disconnect right now. I have to go check Facebook because the sister of a girl I kind of knew in high school might have posted some pictures of her kid or something.