The past several weeks have been especially challenging for me. I had two root canals. Fortunately, my kidney stone hasn’t been acting up. My wife started a new job. The pressures in my own job have been overwhelming and even working late hours, I haven’t been able to keep up with the demands. I’m told that if I would just prioritize, everything would be fine. Meanwhile, I try to tune out as much of the bad online news as I can, but it is still there, constantly.

I had to give up my efforts to write a poem a day. I’ve fallen hopelessly behind in an online class I’ve been taking and in a book study group. Another online class that I’ve been looking forward to has just started and I fear I won’t be able to participate at all. There are numerous important blog posts, at least important in my mind for me to write, that are languishing. All of this, as I try to figure out what happens next in my life.

I need to find some time to take care of myself. I find some of that in going to a poetry group I’m part of on Saturday mornings. I made it there this morning after having missed several gatherings. I find some of this in trying to help those around me, the homeless men I talk with, if I’m not in too much of a rush when I step out of my office. I’ve been wanting to help with a community dinner our church puts on, but have rarely gotten a chance to go to.

Last night, I wrapped up things at the office with enough time to only be about fifteen minutes late for the community dinner. My daughter was horseback riding and she and my wife would be home late, so it looked like a good opportunity to stop by and help. Between the dinner and meetings at work, I was offline for about six hours.

To some people, being offline for six hours might not sound like much, but my job is social media. I am always online, always connected. Linda Stone described it well in her 1998 paper, Continuous Partial Attention. She described it as being “a LIVE node on the network”. When a node on the network goes offline for any period of time it causes problems. A redundant or resilient network manages to find ways to adapt, but it causes stresses.

Last night multiple people were angry at me for being offline for being unavailable to them. They said hurtful things to me. In one case I lashed back and said hurtful things in response, which I’m sorry about.

So, I have gone offline again this afternoon. I am spending time praying, thinking, and writing. I may go back online briefly to post this, perhaps to post something about the event I’m supposed to go to this evening or about church in the morning, but I’m likely to remain offline as much as I can until my work calls me back online. I am trying to prioritize self-care in this age of continuous partial attention.