I have a serious addiction. E-mail. Checking it. Every minute. Every hour. Even two months ago, when my son was sick with possible swine flu. Check. Even when that time-consuming puppy is taking that precious nap. Check. Right in the middle of writing that amazing sentence that will make all the difference – check. What? How dare they not yet get back to me? I sent them a message an entire . . . five minutes ago. Oh. Okay. Give them a little more time then. Check. Check. Check.
It’ll only take a minute. It isn’t like Facebook, where by the time you get through each one of your friends’ updates, and comment on everyone’s post, and mediate on what you’ll say in yours, two hours go by. This is just as quick as typing up: www.hotmail.com Check.
Then one more minute to feel pathetic. Unloved. Abandoned. Despite the fact that it’s Sunday, and your own child who thinks the world of you is waiting to do that puzzle you have promised.
“I’m coming, babe! Just – one more minute.” Check.
It isn’t just the time drain. It’s the drain of spirit. It’s standing there with a bucket and waiting for a drop of rain to fall from the sky. Instead of pouring out into the world whatever it is I’ve got that’s worth pouring out.
Bad habits must go. Especially now that I have returned to cyberspace. I want to connect with people, friends worth keeping, future friends, amazing writers, fabulous authors, teenagers with big ideas, my future students, my future audiences. Facebook – back again, this blog now. Gasp – twitter. I want to connect, but I don’t want to lose my precious life out there. In a maze of virtual dependency and some weird unrealized high-school-type longing.
So, here is what I am pledging to do.
E-mail, FB, comments on this blog. Tech check once a day only. Morning only. Sounds so easy. Sounds so hard.
And what if, come evening-time, that compulsion makes my fingers itch? Then I will. . . write a sentence for my next blog entry. And if that’s done, the next sentence of the “in-progress,” whatever that happens to be at the moment. The first phrase of a new article.
OK. I am serious. This is a promise. Yo, out there! Do you have addictions? Tell me about them here. Don’t be shy. Tell me how you fight them. Tell me what you’ll try next. I’ll check to see what you had to say tomorrow morning! 🙂
Katiaesque 
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