Hello goils! I’m baaaack. Didja miss me? I missed you… for awhile.
Today’s post will be quick, just a check-in to say ‘yes, I am alive’ and ‘yes, there were some incredible lessons and changes’. In later posts, I’ll let you know the really good, the morbidly bad, and the monstrously ugly of unhooking from the internet.
I have to say that although I knew in my head that it would be good to take a month off from blogging and internet stuff, I was really not prepared for the application of it. At. All.
This was sort of a blind test although I did have some knowledge based on the article by Christie Glascoe Crowder over at http://typeaparent.com/going-off-the-grid-planning-and-surviving-a-digital-sabbatical.html. I honestly didn’t think it would make that much of a difference.
I was not prepared to discover the addiction I had actually developed, not only to blogging, posting, reading – but also to surfing, shopping, and researching. And the withdrawal symptoms I had to go through? Good grief. And the agony of how much I failed in the first week. Oh, OK, the first week and a half. And how disgusted I became with myself. And while I did not crawl into a corner to rock and whimper through withdrawals, t’was bad enough.
I was also not prepared for all the wonder, awe and blessing I discovered by doing this. I re-learned the art of taking time to enjoy scents, sounds, textures, views, and heartbeats. I listened to the wind shush through the trees, loving the icy sound. I noticed the brilliant colors of a sunrise and soaked them in. I rubbed the nap on my diva faux mink throw that I use when sitting in the living room, and really enjoyed the softness. I realized that the sunsets sometimes look like the world is on fire (pix above from my front yard).
It is like I became more aware of what was around me, not realizing at all that I’d forgotten how.
Alpha Hubby was gone two weeks of the 4 ½ weeks of January. I discovered that I missed the quiet sounds of him. Tinkering in the kitchen before he goes to bed at night. Breathing softly beside me in the dark. The humming sound he makes when he reaches out and touches me as he sleeps. The sqeech sound the floor makes when he slips out of the room in the morning. I do not sleep well when he is gone.
I missed the scent of him. Burying my nose in that special place under his ear, in the nape of his neck, to inhale his special fragrance mixed with his cologne. The fresh air bouquet he brings inside when he comes in from working outside. The faded cologne scent on his shirts and pillow kept me company.
I do not think I realized how much I hear him without realizing it. And as much as I love smelling his nape, I took it for granted. It had all gotten lost in the noise of life.
It isn’t necessarily the internet itself so much as how much it can suck life out of us. It is like we stop taking time to realize what is going on around us because the internet world becomes more real than the real world. There are precious things of value disappearing in the busy-ness of our life.
I discovered a lot of that busy-ness is not necessarily necessary.
Busy-ness causes you to miss your real life.
