Taking a Break

Let us all celebrate the non-end of the world and the passing of the solstice and Christmas!!! The predicted (by some) end of the world did not bother me, but the holidays really got to me this year. I feel so light and free in comparison to how I felt a few days ago. It’s a pleasure to be alive today.

I can’t figure out why the holidays are more difficult some years than others and I certainly can’t predict which ones are going to be horrible. It’s just a matter of taking it as it comes, remembering that it is, indeed, a holiday, and remembering that it will pass and that I will feel better.

I’m taking a break and won’t be blogging again until January 25. A whole month! I wonder what that will feel like. I’m going to try and use the computer as little as possible during that time — sort of a virtual detox.

For the last twenty plus years, most of my emotional and intellectual life has centered around my computer. Writing and editing newsletters, email, support lists, creating and updating webpages. And hours and hours of research for material for those webpages. It’s been exciting, tedious, challenging, satisfying, exhausting, and rewarding, all at the same time.

It’s also been a bit of a cop out, to tell the truth. I have a  high level of social anxiety and it is far easier to interact with people virtually than face to face or even by phone. You see, my abusers didn’t have access to the very early computers when I was growing up, so they weren’t used in my abuse in any way. They are “clean” in my mind.

(An aside: the first computer I ever saw, in 1959, was in a warehouse-sized room at Harvard. I remember thinking, “I am standing inside this computer.” I believe it was the Mark I. I remember it having huge reels of tape, like a reel-to-reel tape recorder, all along the walls, although when I Googled images of the Mark 1 and subsequent early Harvard computers, there were no visible reels. It did use paper tape, though. It took seven years to build and was used during World War II for simple mathematical calculations. Can’t imagine how it might have been used to abuse a child, but I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody figured that out.)

So, my goal is a month without using a computer hardly at all. If all goes well, I’ll learn to be more present, and if it doesn’t go so well, I’ll just go crazy. No big deal — I am used to that!