All over the internet, I’m reading about people taking a break from the online noise. Can I add a resounding YES? Let me be the one-millionth person to say that I need a break from the constant onslaught of new media. I need less Twitter and Facebook in my life, mostly because I need to take a deep breath and live my own in real time.
I need to be bored for a day. I need to read a new book, thumb through the old Country Living magazines gathering dust, and snuggle up to the dog snoozing on the sofa. I need a glass of iced tea on the back deck while staring at the mounds of dirt shifting from one end of the yard to the other. I need to catch up on my laundry and sort through every school paper my kids have brought home since 2003. I need to wash paint brushes for my husband and dead head the flowers. I need a plan of attack for the embarrassment that is my basement. I need to drive my kids to basketball camp and listen when they speak. I need to look them in the eyes.
I need to set a better example.
I need to think my own thoughts. I don’t know if I’ve had an original one since I started reading other people’s blogs. Aren’t we all starting to sound alike? I want to hear the sound of my own voice rattling around in my head. I love what people create online, but keeping up with the latest posts and comments and issue of the week is exhausting. I don’t think my world was meant to be so big. I want to grow smaller, deeper, more intimate with the life playing our right in front of me every day. And I just can’t do that if I’m trying to stay abreast of the latest twitter rants on issues I don’t care about.
Here’s what I want to do–I want to follow and read and engage in the online world, but in a way that stimulates creativity and understanding, rather than sucks the life right out of me. How will I do this? I don’t rightly know. I’m open to suggestions. What or who do you follow online that you find life-giving? I personally heart Instagram. No fuss, no rants, no crazy-making. Just photos and a few funny or thought-provoking words from people I like. Instagram helps me see my own life better, and I find it’s almost impossible to make mine look or sound like someone else’s over there. It’s my real life in real time. Paintbrushes, school papers, puppy dog, and all.
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What are you doing this summer to give yourself some head space from the online or in-real-life noise?
