I’ll let you guess which of the following have been said to me in the last year.
“You’re tweeting in the bathtub??”
“Do you really need to check in with work on vacation??”
“Mommy, can we pretend that you’re talking to me on the phone instead?”
Um, ya. How about all of them. Ouch right? Clearly I need to set some boundaries for myself. I’ve noted more and more that although I HEART my BlackBerry Torch it’s starting to put a strain on my relationships.
It’s kind of weird that something that fits inside your palm can put a wedge between face-to-face human interactions isn’t it? It really sounds stupid when I say that I had no idea that when I was sitting on the couch browsing through facebook that I was missing out on building my relationship with the GeekDad. I figured that couch time is couch time, and after 11 years being together it would be cool. I know, you can slap me in the face and say it, DUH.
My BlackBerry and need to be ‘always on’ have truly become an addiction. I’ve been carrying a BlackBerry since 1999, and the thought of not having one actually sends waves of panic through me. I mean, utter “Oh no - what will I do with myself, how will I survive,” kind of panic.
Just like any addiction, overtime it begins to break down relationships with the people around you. I LOVE being connected to the world around me, but what I didn’t realize was that while I was connected to the global community, I was becoming disconnected with the most important community in my world – my family.
I know that to kick this habit I’ll have to force myself to leave my phone upstairs. I’ll have to turn it off when on vacation, and resort to extraordinary measures to keep myself from logging in. I’ll have to use the ‘Auto-off’ feature from 9pm-7am and force myself not to look at until after cooking breakfast.
So – now that my husband follows me on Twitter, and is probably reading this blog I make this promise public.
I, Krista, devoted wife to the Geek Dad, and mother to the Geekling, promise to limit my BlackBerry usage. I promise to only check my twitter feeds and facebook when it will not impact my time with my family. I promise to take more time to stop and smell the roses. Maybe read a book, or start writing that novel I promised myself I would write before I turned 40. It will take time to overcome this ridiculous addiction, and I’m not sure I can, but I promise I will work on it.
That said, I'm going to go cuddle with Geek Dad and play Clue with Geekling. I’m signing off ... until tomorrow.
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