In one week from today I will be boarding a plane to Philly, a much needed trip to visit family whom I haven’t seen in almost 9 months. During this 9 month period my insatiable need for connection with the US – news, happenings, people, mentalities (although some I could do without), foods, family and friends – has been replaced by an insatiable dependency on email, twitter, facebook, blogging, and all things internet related. This is serious, it is unhealthy and causing me strife. I shall explain why.

The infectious humming of the tweetdeck alert that notifies me that a friend has tweeted or mentioned me haunts me at night – will I have more followers? Who is interested in what I have to say? There are so many great articles that people post, so many great ideas, and insightful commentary…. how can I get on a plane for 9 hours, be jet lagged and miss out on all the action? This is a sick state of affairs, let me tell you. I have been laying in bed this week thinking – ok, on average I get 10 emails a morning and more throughout the course of the day (some of those are daily blogs). I hate the feeling of logging into my inbox and finding it saturated and have to filter through the junk and the useful info. But if I don’t read all the blog updates I feel like I’m missing something. This is the root of the problem. For so long I worried about missing something in the US, be it with my family and friends or nationally, and now I’m worried about missing something online. The point was not to swap one issue for another!

I start to feel strange when I haven’t checked twitter, my emails, the blogs I follow and facebook – there is a sense of discomfort that is very hard to describe but it exists. I don’t want to feel inhibited by the internet. It has a luring force and community spirit but it does not take the place of outings with family and friends. I MUST fight its power! According to the always credible wikipedia, Internet Addiction Disorder is a reality and interferes significantly with daily life. I don’t know about interferes, per se, but it certainly occupies much of my time and energy.

All of this to say, my trip home should be about family, friends and some work that needs to get done. It should not be about staying connected to twitter to find out that yet another individual in the world thinks Kanye West is a jackass. I need to get it together and remember the period in my life where free time was spent playing outside and taking walks with my dogs. Must. Resist.