Sometimes I feel quite torn. It’s mostly during the summer months when I have all the windows open, I can hear the chickens crowing, and I can smell the sweet, humid, Michigan air.
My phone is tucked away somewhere – when was the last time I charged that thing? Who knows. Who really cares?
My kids are running around outside laughing their heads off, flushed little faces with watermelon juice trickling down onto their toes. Shoes are optional.
Life is slow. It’s simple. Time is less relevant than ever during the summer – it doesn’t even get dark until 9 pm anyway.
Now I’m in the kitchen making homemade bread. Washing dirt off the produce from the garden. What delicious dinner should I concoct today with this assortment of herbs and vegetables? I’m sipping on the smallest glass of champagne while the Steve Miller Band plays on my record player. My husband pops in and out, stealing kisses and chopped veggies off my cutting board.
My heart is centered in my home. What need have I for technology when everything I value is right in front of me?
It’s in these moments when the online world feels more distant and intangible than ever.
WordPress? Why is WordPress relevant when I’m nursing my baby or reading my littles another story?
Why is “building websites” important at all when I could run into the woods and find a big branch to wood burn for a project back home?
Something physical. Something concrete. Something real.
Everyone has some level of anxiety, I know this. It’s been a battle of mine as early as I can remember.
I have a secret. The internet makes me anxious.
It’s a scary place for children (heck, I’ve seen my fair share of horrors as an adult). It’s also out of my control.
It’s why I have written in a notebook somewhere, from my freelancing days, “I am not responsible for the internet”. To get me through when DNS settings didn’t change fast enough and clients were blowing up my email asking “Why isn’t my site live yet?!”.
Living “off the grid” (to the extent I can) must be some sort of escapism. I think I’m okay with that.
I can’t escape the internet altogether. I probably wouldn’t want to if I really thought about it.
Where would I learn new recipes and homemaking ideas without YouTube? How would I connect with distant friends and relatives without FaceTime and text messages? I also wouldn’t have a job (which I love) without the internet.
I do need the grid, as much as I resist it.
But there is that inner knowing deep down within me that someday…just as quietly as I appeared on the internet, I will vanish.
And I delight in that.