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Reprioritizing
14 years ago
General
Moving isn't always easy, even at the absolute best of times. Everything is going well for me and I'm very very happy to be where I am, but over the last couple weeks there's a realization that has been increasingly dawning on me.
The one thing about being in the UK that is very slightly less than absolutely fantastic is the time zone, at least if you have American friends. I am an American, I have many American friends and they mean a huge deal to me. There are a lot of really fantastic people who I'm delighted to know and who have brought al manner of awesome into my life at various points.
You know who you are. <3
But, the way time zones are arranged, very little of the free time I have to be online coincides anymore with the usual times that American folks tend to be online. Many days I might show up for a couple hours during my late evening before going to bed, and that being the afternoon for North America means it's about the only time I'm available to chat in real time to -anyone- in the States. During the rest of my day they haven't woken up yet, and during the rest of their day it's the middle of the night for me and I'm asleep. So those couple hours tend to be pretty frantic, trying to keep up with everyone who's around that I care about. As long as it's just friendly conversation and catching up I manage it happily, but anything beyond that tends to get unmanageable in a hurry.
Coupled with all this is a realization that, as a general shift in my lifestyle, I'm just not interested in living my entire day sat at the computer any more. During graduate school, pretty much all of my free time was spent online because I had no good friends closer than a 5 hour drive away, so as much as I honestly loved living in Iowa, my recreational time was generally spent wishing I was somewhere else and with other people. My life is moving along now, I'm a lot closer to where I want to be, I'm with one person I really want to be with and soon will be with more, I've got a couple hobbies and in a few months I'll be looking to start a full time career.
Long story short, I'm not as much of a spending-my-entire-life-sat-at-the-computer kind of dragon as I used to be.
I know I've been a lot more scarce to many of my friends than I used to be, and for that I am truly sorry. I miss all of you, and as much as I'm shifting my life to be less focused on the internet, it is very much not my desire to shift my life away from any of my friends. The way I communicate and socialize with them though is changing one way or another, so as with so many things in life, we must adapt. I think we're all going to find that the best ways to keep in touch with me are going to start being less about seeing me on the instant messenger of your choice on a near-daily basis, and more about email exchanges, journal comments, private messages, and other means of communication that don't depend on real time interaction.
So, if any of you are missing me and wishing to keep in better touch with me, drop me a note or something and we can sort things out to start pinging emails back and forth or whatnot. I am not leaving the internets forever, but I'm forced to accept that I will no longer be frequenting them, at least in real time chat form, nearly as much as I used to.
The one thing about being in the UK that is very slightly less than absolutely fantastic is the time zone, at least if you have American friends. I am an American, I have many American friends and they mean a huge deal to me. There are a lot of really fantastic people who I'm delighted to know and who have brought al manner of awesome into my life at various points.
You know who you are. <3
But, the way time zones are arranged, very little of the free time I have to be online coincides anymore with the usual times that American folks tend to be online. Many days I might show up for a couple hours during my late evening before going to bed, and that being the afternoon for North America means it's about the only time I'm available to chat in real time to -anyone- in the States. During the rest of my day they haven't woken up yet, and during the rest of their day it's the middle of the night for me and I'm asleep. So those couple hours tend to be pretty frantic, trying to keep up with everyone who's around that I care about. As long as it's just friendly conversation and catching up I manage it happily, but anything beyond that tends to get unmanageable in a hurry.
Coupled with all this is a realization that, as a general shift in my lifestyle, I'm just not interested in living my entire day sat at the computer any more. During graduate school, pretty much all of my free time was spent online because I had no good friends closer than a 5 hour drive away, so as much as I honestly loved living in Iowa, my recreational time was generally spent wishing I was somewhere else and with other people. My life is moving along now, I'm a lot closer to where I want to be, I'm with one person I really want to be with and soon will be with more, I've got a couple hobbies and in a few months I'll be looking to start a full time career.
Long story short, I'm not as much of a spending-my-entire-life-sat-at-the-computer kind of dragon as I used to be.
I know I've been a lot more scarce to many of my friends than I used to be, and for that I am truly sorry. I miss all of you, and as much as I'm shifting my life to be less focused on the internet, it is very much not my desire to shift my life away from any of my friends. The way I communicate and socialize with them though is changing one way or another, so as with so many things in life, we must adapt. I think we're all going to find that the best ways to keep in touch with me are going to start being less about seeing me on the instant messenger of your choice on a near-daily basis, and more about email exchanges, journal comments, private messages, and other means of communication that don't depend on real time interaction.
So, if any of you are missing me and wishing to keep in better touch with me, drop me a note or something and we can sort things out to start pinging emails back and forth or whatnot. I am not leaving the internets forever, but I'm forced to accept that I will no longer be frequenting them, at least in real time chat form, nearly as much as I used to.
Also I'm loving your new spinny icon, it's awesome and hypnotizing. ^..^
--S
Its great that your life is moving the way you want it to and even better that you're happy. Seriously though, as long as there is some kind of communication sometime during the week, whether it is email, notes, IMing, or something else, doesn't matter what it is. Hell, it could even be hand written letters. Which, now that I think about it that would be pretty damn cool. You're a great friend, the best, but you don't need to be at the computer every minute of everyday. Take your time, live a little, go hang out with friends. Make new friends in the UK. Meet new people. Go outside and enjoy the view. Wake up early and enjoy the sunrise or watch the sunset. We mean really Doran, take some time for yourself and just chill and do whatever. Believe me the internet won't die if you start missing from it for a little while. Hell, I would even suggest camping. That;s a ton of fun providing its with people you want to be with. Oh, and if you do go camping bring cards. You have no idea how many times that has saved us from boredom during a trip. ^^ I do believe I am ranting a bit but in case you skipped all the nonsense leading up to this other bit of nonsense here is a summary of what has been said by us: You don't need to spend every waking moment online, take some time to yourself and live a little while you still can.
--The Comedians
--S & D