Taking the Plunge

Day 0
December 31, 2008
10:21 p.m.

So I’m doing it. I put up on Facebook that I’m not going to be on the internet during 2009.

I’m scared. It doesn’t feel right, partly because my cousin in the midwest seems miffed and my mother doesn’t completely understand what I’m doing. She thought I didn’t want her to contact me at all. My cousin and I have reconnected via Gmail chat and Facebook and it’s been significant for both of us. She was not happy when I broke the news to her last night.

I’ve been working on logistics: weather for instance. I use the internet all the time to check the weather updates. Of all the things I’ll miss this year (GULP…a year?) one of the biggest is NEXRAD with storm tracks. And those winter storm updates from NWS.

Today I looked up the phone number for NWS in Gray. The phone book gave the web address. Crap! I thought. I better hurry! So I hopped online and found the phone number, called it, and got through to a real person who happily gave me the number for phone weather reports. Since, of course, we don’t have a television.

It was cool, though, to talk to a PERSON who seemed happy to help somebody.

Quite a few people have seemed inspired by this move. So may it continue in an outward ripple effect, to propel those people in the direction of something they’ve been wanting to do.

What I think I'll miss: chatting with my cousin, NEXRAD / weather updates / satellite imagery of storms; seeing photos of people’s babies and children; the little bits of news from family.

I just keep wanting more authentic experiences. Face to face, voice to voice, letter to letter. I’m thinking about getting out my fountain pen and trying to find some decent stationery…without using the Internet.

I keep feeling these waves of anxiety flow through my body. It’s completely weird. The internet is not physically wired into me but it is definitely “wired” into my mind.

Tonight Charlie was saying goodbye to 2008 while getting ready to fall asleep. I had that feeling of a year passing too quickly. A year ago I just hoped not to break any bones in 2008. I can’t believe that was an entire year ago. I thought, good, it won’t take too long to get through this. But I felt entirely called for quite a long time to do this. How often can we do something for an entire year? And if not now, when?

Back to knitting.