…and I will get back to you….oh….when I feel like it!
It is May 2nd and I am on the second official day of working my way into the forest (retirement/vanaprastha) and I am quite happy to have made the decision over the last months to disconnect myself from my electronic leash. I no longer have to be ready to jump the minute the phone rings. I finally have stopped taking the cell phone into the bathroom with me and I actually turned it off completely while at the theater tonight (rather than put it on silent and place the phone strategically in my purse so I can see if it lighting up with an incoming call). I no longer step out in the middle of a movie or dinner to do a phoner for TV when there is breaking news or walk out of a nice social event to jump in a limo and go down to the studio. I have done this for over thirteen years of working with the media and, if I add the ten years prior when I was on call 24/7 (in the pager days) as an sign interpreter for the emergency rooms of three major hospitals, I have been someone’s bitch for almost two and a half decades.
I am not complaining…. really. I liked the excitement of something suddenly happening and having to race somewhere to deal with it. I liked being the go-to person for emergencies and breaking news. All the hubbub was a great part of my life. Giving up such a stimulating piece of my daily world was difficult and a bit terrifying. Suddenly, silence. Suddenly, no one needing me. Suddenly, I felt invisible.
But, then, after the shock wore off, I realized I become far more visible and accessible to nonwork people – family, friends, even the person I just met in line at the supermarket. I am not constantly distracted, ignoring them and talking on the phone, apologizing again and again for relegating them to second place, running off to “do something more important.” Now, I am really with whomever I am with and I can stay with them until we finish whatever we are doing.
I can actually be in the moment and stay in the moment, and not worry that the next moment will contain the sound of a phone ringing. By disconnecting, I find I am reconnecting with the people that matter the most.
our lives in the forest 
If you have disconnected yourself from the portable electronic interrupter, how has your life changed?
Congrats on your retirement! May all you enjoy be a bright spot! Hope all is better for your Dad..and mayyou enjoy “calmness/ serentity and good friends and family”..and enjoy the simple things of less stress! Sunshine and Blue skies be with you!
I wish a couple of my friends would disconnect their cells. I rarely use mine and only turn it on when I need it. I feel I have lost a couple of friends because I am not on Facebook and don’t have a Smartphone and refuse — refuse– to waste my time texting when I can type an email on a real keyboard 100 times faster. Nowadays, those couple of friends don’t even bother answering. I may hear from them never or months later because they’re mainly texting and Facebooking. I just think it’s sad. I heard from one of them this week, but mainly because she needs a realtime ride to the doctor, I’m afraid.