On a break
NS December 15th, 2008
Dear Internet,
I love you. I really do. But in the famous last words of Ross and Rachel, we need to go on a break.
When I first met you years ago I was able to use you for informational or entertainment purposes and only in small doses. Then I became a stay-at-home mom, isolated from the outside world, and you provided me with adult interaction, virtual shoulders to cry on, advice to consider and others with which to empathise. Blogs and chat forums were like manna straight from Lonely Mama heaven for me. You lured me in further with flashing lights and audio clips. Over time, you made it so I felt that I could only learn, read and interact through you. If I could crush you up with a credit card and snort you up my nose with a £20 note on the back of a pub toilet, I so totally would’ve.
Now, nearly three years into my stay-at-home-parenting gig, you have me in a stranglehold of email accounts, YouTube channels, RSS feeds, chat forums and news sites. I go into withdrawals if I can’t have you, can’t see you or use you. I pace. I get angry. I fidget. I can’t concentrate. All I can think about is when I can see you again. You make me laugh, you make me cry and sometimes you make me want to stomp on your head and throw you out the window.
But you know what, Internet? As much as I love you, I love me and my family more. When you suck my energy, attention and time towards you, I (and they) lose. When I spend two hours every day just reading blogs, another hour a day blogging, and the equivalent of another couple hours browsing forums and news sites, it’s no wonder that things sit undone in my life — books unread on the shelves, the house in a thin layer of filth, my hobbies untouched, friends unvisited, exercise abandoned and, worst of all, my children and marriage unappreciated. The thought that I may miss an opportunity to teach my children something (or learn from them, more likely) or an attempt by my husband to connect, all because I was busy staring at a computer screen, makes me feel queasy. So over this holiday period, and for perhaps a little longer, we are On a Break. I’m putting you down and backing away before I am unable to do either of those things and the choice is no longer mine but made for me.
When I was in college I came perilously close to becoming addicted to drugs, and one in particular. Only a wafer thin line of common sense and sheer luck brought me back from the edge that I teetered on, between Harmless Fun and Life-Altering Ruinous Carnage. The way it started making me feel, making me hate myself for indulging, promising that I wouldn’t do it again or that I’d cut back — that’s the way I’m staring to feel about you. And so, you see, I have to leave you before things get ugly. I don’t want a divorce, just a trial separation. Time away to do some thinking. Find myself again so I have something more to give when I return.
If you can’t wait for me, I’ll understand. Things move fast in your world and what’s out of sight is often out of mind. If you move on before I get back, I want you to know that I will always care for you and remember the good times we had. You helped shape the person I am today and I won’t soon forget that. But now it’s time for me to move on, to quiet the keyboard and still the mouse. To get up off the sofa and put ‘home’ in my house. So it’s farewell for now, I bid you adieu. Merry Christmas, Internet, see you soon.
