Disconnect Thyself

While I could complain about how Bell came in to bury a phone line in my yard and subsequently disconnected my cable internet which is a large transgression, I’ll talk about the interesting side effect this brought upon the household over the May long weekend.

Friday night, we had no Internet.  Subsequently we didn’t have Internet until the following Wednesday when the cable company could come over and see what was wrong.

Living without Internet is…weird.  Strange.  Eerie.  There is this sense of disconnect.  There was also this new sense that I haven’t felt in a long time.

What do I do today?

I have realized that wherever I go in the house, my iPad is at my side.  I surf the Internet for new news items that may interest me, I check out forums that interest me.  In most cases, it’s sifting through information to find something that catches my eye.  But for the most part, it’s just sifting.

When I was making a t-shirt transfer, I couldn’t figure out how to flip it horizontally and I sat there thinking “I wish I could just Google this question” but after two minutes I found it on my own.

On Tuesday night, I thought “I don’t want to watch any TV tonight, what am I going to do?” and I proceeded to start cleaning up the spare bedroom downstairs which is still in a state of renovation.  Vero was quite excited by the fact that she didn’t have to nag me to get this room cleaned up.  I’m also thinking that I realized that my parents are coming up in a few weeks and it needs to get cleaned someday!

I did little things that have bothered me for awhile…even the little thing of having a wire hang a different way from the printer made me smile.

I caught up on so much reading.  I had bought a few graphic novels on Saturday morning and had read them by weekend’s end.

We worked on the yard…mowed it, put some grass seed down, worked on the garden.

The days went by and I felt myself slowly disconnect from this connected world.  It felt refreshing.

I used to have a cellphone and now I don’t (other than the pay as you go that comes out when we are on the road for an event).  I realized that I was quite connected back then and this was before texting.  But it was a freeing feeling when I got rid of the phone.  I even notice myself getting back into the trap of things when I get to use the phone on a trip.  Texting Mike some trivial things and whatnot.

Last night when the Internet was back up, I fell back into my old habits…the ipad was at my side and I was sifting through news items to see if anything catches my interest.  I have to say I was left…unfulfilled in some way.  Was it because there was nothing interesting on the Internet that night?  Perhaps.

Or maybe it’s because I had a taste of a disconnected world and it was good.  It’s one thing to put down the iPad/iPhone for an afternoon, but when it comes down to a moment of relaxation, it’s an entirely different world.

I wonder how many of us could go a weekend without checking the internet or their cellphone for some text message from their friends?  I doubt anyone would be up for the challenge.