Unplugged

It’s my first time online since the 23rd of December – three days. Not bad. And it wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I’d imagined it could be. Day 1 was a blur. I was on the road meeting people for a lot of it and then there was the annual neighbour drop-in, where everyone within shouting distance of our house drops by for a few hours.

The day itself was quiet – more neighbours, lots of food, and hours of TV. For the first time ever (I am still in shock) I watched Jimmy Stewart in the original 1946 version of It’s a Wonderful Life. How I have gotten to where I am today without seeing that particular gem is beyond me. And did you know that it was a box-office flop when it was first released? Apparently it didn’t become THE Christmas movie until the 1970s. What a sweet, lovely, film – imagine someone wanting to lasso the moon for you… sigh…

Later that evening, another long threatening came to pass as I managed to stay awake to get through all of Argo. Set in a time when Jimmy Stewart’s film was becoming popular, it couldn’t be more different. Six Americans holed up in the Canadian’s ambassador’s residence in Teheran for more than 70 days in fear of their lives. The mind boggles. The hostage crisis was more than 30 years ago and yet today, the world doesn’t seem to have moved on any.

St Stephen’s Day saw more visitors, more turkey, and more telly. While there was a faint niggling in the back of my brain all the time, accompanied by the full knowledge that I have deadlines to meet early next week, I simply couldn’t bring myself to turn on my computer. And that’s progress.

And what’s more I even forgot about my phones, accidentally muting them more often than not or leaving them in a coat pocket. [My trial iPhone is driving me batty anyway, so that was no loss really.]

There’s another few days to go before 2015 ratchets up and thoughts turn to resolutions and better ways to live. I don’t have a telly in Budapest but I do have shelves of unread book and unwatched movies. I also have years of accumulated ‘stuff’ that needs to be disposed of. My plan for the coming year is twofold: to unplug a little more, i.e., to go dark at least one, if not two days a week and recapture some of my free time to put to more constructive use; and to purge, to lighten the load, to unshackle myself from attachments to things and thoughts that have outlived their purpose.

 

 

4 Responses

  1. Hi Mary, I have only been following you since our school reunion last year & I have to say I have really enjoyed your writing. I hope you are enjoying your time at home this Christmas & look forward to following you again in 2015.

    1. Thanks Mary – hear that there’s a 50th birthday party in the offing (50 being the average age – some of us won’t hit that for a couple of years 🙂 ) – looking forward to catching up then.

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