Hyperconnected: Somedays I just want to be unplugged

I love this blog. It's become a part of my life and who I am. It has given me an outlet for the words swirling around in my head all the time. And through it, I've "met" other women who also dare to put themselves out there...sharing their thoughts, their fears, their triumphs, and sometimes (oh frivolity!) their latest shopping loot. These blogs have helped me realize I'm not the only one in this whole "Motherhood-can-sometimes-suck" situation, and have made me a better writer. Being exposed to a lot of different voices has helped me refine my own.

But somedays, I just want to quit. I want to turn off the computer, delete my website address, and never read another post again.

I don't like the self-inflicted pressure to constantly be connected.

A couple of weeks ago, Kristen decided she was going on a Digital Diet. She realized that although her blog and its readers were not "empty calories," but part of her "nutrition" and "sustenance," she still needed to set up some ground rules and find some balance. Here's my problem: I think I'm already pretty balanced. I don't post more than a couple of times a week, I limit my reading to a handful of really fantastic blogs, and I try to keep my comments coming but controlled. Yet I still feel overwhelmed sometimes.

I just can't keep up.

I started blogging simply because I wanted to write again. I didn't realize that blogging is not just writing. It's reading. It's following. It's commenting. It's connecting. And I love all of that. But it takes up a lot of time, time I don't have, and quite honestly, time I'd sometimes rather spend doing something else. I am not too happy sitting behind a computer. If it were up to me, I'd write all my posts with a pen and a paper and mail 'em out to you all. I know. I'm archaic. And the Twitter thing? Not for me. I just don't want to be that connected. Because every second I am connected, every second I'm typing or reading or commenting or (God forbid) tweeting, is a second I'm disconnected from the real stuff: my kids, my husband, my friends, my job, my home, my books, my Life. I'm always scared that if I get too caught up writing about life, I might actually miss out on some of it.

I do think part of my problem simply comes from the fact that technology is not my pastime of choice. I'd rather be reading a book, flipping through a magazine, or watching E News than surfing the web. I've never been into chat rooms or instant messaging or Facebook. It's just turned out that in today's world, the online version is the best way to get yourself, your words, out there. So here I am. I went from having absolutely no idea how to even start a blog to using the term "Mr. Linky" around the house. I've resisted most of it. I've tried to learn "just enough."

But it's a struggle I'm finding myself battling more and more as time goes on. I have days when I think: Maybe I'll stop. I'll just stop writing.

But I can't. I can't because this is the most I've felt like my old self again...the self who grew up believing she was going to be a writer.

So I suppose I'll continue to struggle...struggle to keep up with everyone else...struggle to find the time to read and comment and reach out and write my own posts...struggle to find the balance where I can continue to enjoy it and not always feel that pressure to keep up. Because really, who has made up those rules? The ones that say I have to keep up at all? Keep up with who, exactly? The only person measuring and counting is me. The only person beating me up is, as usual, myself.