Recently I came to the conclusion that turning off my online life for more extended periods of time was necessary for my survival.
Which is weird because I also recently concluded that my online life is something that has kept me alive during some dark times.
One thing I’ve never claimed to be decisive and that’s a fact. I think.
Regardless, I wouldn’t have survived my foray into parenting if it wasn’t for a group of writers who happened to jump into the same boat as me and write about it in these here open waters of a virtual nature. Side note: If that boat had had a name during the early years, it most definitely would have been ‘Dazed and Confused’.
Some of those writers became in real life friends for life — which isn’t as confining as it sounds.
*waves into the screen* ‘hello friends who made me privy to your most personal thoughts and succeeded in making me love you before even knowing if you liked Nickleback or not.’
Because we all know in real life that’s pretty much how I categorize people: friends or Nickleback lovers. It apparently doesn’t apply to my virtual life because more than a few people I’ve met and grown to adore claim to love Nickleback and that just makes no sense to me.
Anyway.
It wasn’t easy quitting something so ingrained — or would that be ‘something so Borg‘? I kid. No Borg in my community, just a whole whack of independent thinkers peppered with the occasional mild to moderate mob. Though now that I think about it, there are also many online friends who look like 7 of 9. But I digress.
I knew unplugging at regular intervals had to be done for my sanity, health, and family because all signs pointed to breakdown unless I accepted that I just can’t do it all.
Wow. How original </sarcasm> Someone shoot me for stating the obvious and something already said/lamented/challenged/dissected/dissertatized a million times over in every medium by every method in every corner of the matriarchy.
But here’s the thing about this overdone realization: This realization and eventual implementation of plan ‘I Can’t Do It All And That’s OK‘ was my epiphany.
Mine.
And this is my space in the online world where for at least today — or until SOPA deems my blog blocked and renders me silent – I am free to say what I please as long as it doesn’t hurt someone, and even that caveat is my own. But even if my space’s existence resulted in inducing readers to stab themselves in the eyes with forks after ingesting my extreme navel gazing, it’s a free, and open space. And that type of injury is not my fault anyway. No one forced them to read my words at gunpoint and we all know how to close browser window, don’t we?
Oh sorry mom, I’ll show you later.
Long of short: I love my online life but I just can’t have the quantity my brain has become accustomed. And that’s a rough, hard, cold fact surrounded by sad pandas.
These days I’m in self-run rehab but truth is I don’t ever think I’ll ever be able to quit. Kind of hard when the lunatic is running the asylum.
But that also is ok because I think we were meant to be together.
Let’s just hope it stays that way. SOPA scares me.
This post is filed under mental health (if I did that category kind of thing).
3 Comments
Sorry to hear you can’t do it all, Katie. I, on the other hand, have a flourishing career, three lovely and well-behaved children and an immaculate house. *looks down* Unless, getting dressed before 11am is part of doing it all. And I was lying about the other stuff, too. Still, I think I do believe on some level it’s just a matter of finding that extra push and everything will fall into place. The obvious eludes me too.
Interesting how it seems like an impossibility to just turn it off, to s-t-o-p. I’m new to the blogging world and actually just quit my job to expand mine, and I already feel like I can’t slow down or pull away for even an hour. Glad to hear I’m not alone. PS, I wish companies would apply your Nickleback principle to their hiring practices. Corporate America would be a better place.
Dude. Nobody can do it all. It’s the biggest fallacy of our online lives. Those who look like they can do it all are definitely hurting a few people. You can’t have 200 friends that you talk to every day, plus read their blogs, plus leave comments, plus pay attention to your fam. It’s impossible. But no one ever says it out loud.
Here’s what I do know. You are an awesome mom. You are a wicked funny writer and mad talented in general. Take the time in the quiet and see what comes to you. On your own time. There’s still a lot more that the Katie I know has to say.
N