It didn't start out as a vacation from the internet.
It started out as a trip over to Idaho, delivering wine to Bill and Angie at Full Circle Ranch. Michelle and I had been talking about taking the 2 1/2 hour drive over there to hit the mountain with our ponies for a while. Events conspired to make it a good weekend to go, so Saturday morning early we loaded up the horses and headed east.
I took my brand new phone with me, the one I'm a little bit in love with. It has web apps and Twitter and Facebook and email - I'm so socially connected on that thing its like I'm never entirely alone. I bought this phone exactly for this reason, so that I could, even when away from home and sans laptop, could connect. Could tweet, update, surf and post to my heart's content.
The drive over, I checked tweets, even tweeted. Once. I checked the weather. But then we were riding, and then having a gourmet dinner, and then heading home, sleepy. And then it was Sunday and there was church and yard work to do and kids to play with. And then it was Monday and there was housework and playing with the kids and having dinner with my parents. And all of a sudden I wake up on Tuesday and I realized I haven't tweeted for almost three days. I haven't opened Tweetdeck since Friday night. I haven't blogged. I haven't been on Facebook. I'VE BEEN DISCONNECTED!
I love social media. I like the feeling of camaraderie, even relevancy that I get when I put something out into the ether and someone responds to me. I love feeling part of something enormous and connected, a place where there are other women who may not be *exactly* like me, but who have facets of their lives that mirror facets of mine. We connect, we share, we commiserate, applaud, cry. And there are days when that connection feels like a lifeline, like some sort of vital arterial supply, even.
Imagine my surprise, this morning, when I realized that I was disconnected from the internet and I didn't even CARE. I felt no sense of anxiety, no sense of panic. I had been doing things I wanted to do, things I enjoyed. For much of Saturday and Sunday, I was Out. Out in nature, enjoying the trees and the smell of the rain and the dirt and the air. Leaving my phone inside, leaving my computer turned off. And I was completely OK. I bet you didn't even notice that I was gone, did you? And that's OK too.
Blogging, tweeting, reading, commenting - all feel important to me at this time in my life. We all blog for different reasons. Some people blog as a business, to support their families and their lives. Some people blog for no reason other than to have an outlet for their writing. Some people blog as a way of reaching out to others. I guess I fall into the latter categories, I have ads on my blog, but they really don't net me any income. At best I generate enough traffic to pay a quarter of my hosting fees or so. I blog because I like to write. I blog because I like to connect with others. I blog because something in me needs to know that you - even if its only a few of you - are out there and something I say connects to something you feel, and we recognize each other. Many think bloggers are narcissistic navel gazers. I say that most people are, the blogging world is no different. It *is* all about us, at the heart of the matter. We begin alone, we end alone, and even when we are surrounded by others, at the heart of every experience we have is the fact we are alone inside our heads. And so we reach out, we seek understanding, confirmation, acceptance. We talk, we sing, we laugh, we write. We call, we update, we put banners in the sky: I AM HERE. DO YOU SEE ME? And so I blog.
And this weekend, I realized, happily, that I could stop blogging tomorrow. You would still be there, just not reading THIS blog. You would be fine. I would be fine. The world would continue its madcap journey around the sun, and I would find other outlets, other ways to connect and to be relevant. Someday, when I'm not blogging anymore or some of you aren't blogging anymore, I'll remember how much I enjoyed connecting with you and I will smile, the way I smile when I remember a special moment with a loved one, a comment from a beloved friend or an old flame.
It was a wonderful vacation, Internet. I don't know if we missed each other, but here we are and I'm glad to be connected once again.
