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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Greatful for the internet (Part 2)

Some of this I said in Part 1 but here is another reason to be happy there is an internet. To summarize: living alone and being alone is the pits.

When you live alone, if you have pets you talk to them. Yes, I do talk to my cats. Absent a tag wag, or a blink, they do not talk back. Sometimes you talk outloud to yourself. It helps to hear a voice, even if it is just your own, old, familiar one. Sometimes you find yourself talking to the air. I put out a question. Thankfully, the air does not answer, at least not yet.

You always have to be on your toes that the talking does not become too much of a habit.

If it becomes a habit, you wonder, or catch yourself, doing the things that make you look 'crazy' to others, or at least very alone. Do I talk outloud at the supermarket? Do my lips move when I am having an internal dialogue with myself?

One day I noticed a lady standing next to me in the line at the supermarket. She was talking outloud to herself. She caught my eye. "I live alone" she said and smiled. She needed no further explanation.

I "talk" here and that is okay. 'Crazy' gets assigned only to things you write with which others might disagree. I mentioned to an online friend, someone from high school who reconnected with me, (and with whom I 'talk" almost every day) that I joined a blog group and I was being inundated with emails. Because of the eye issues I end up deleting a lot of them. Reading them all would be impossible for me. Doing so I feel guilty, but there really is no other choice.

"I have been off the computer for maybe a day and have over a hundred of these mails." I kvetched. He wrote back, "Now you know you're not alone."

He is right.

I sign up at a site and people immediately respond. They have much to say and offer and I love to 'hear' it. I put out words and someone says, "Me too.", "Thank you for saying that." or even "You're completely wrong." A dialogue is started. It may end quickly, lots of political debates end that way, or go for a while as support starts, grows and envelopes both or even all of us.

I write here and someone reads what I have to say. I send it out to the air and this time the 'air' answers back.

2 comments:

  1. Yes, it is extraordinary, isn't it. What is great too is that you can filter - interact with what you want to interact with, and hit delete for the rest. It's communication but in a way that we can keep within our personal comfort zone.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Absolutely. And I do love the delete button when I need it.

    ReplyDelete