Real Life or Virtual Life?

Happy Valentine's Day, dear blogging buddies! I'm particularly partial to Mrs. Fields chocolates, for obvious reasons. :)

Thanks to everyone who played along in my new blog feature, Toss Around Thursday. I appreciated all the great book recommendations, and I hope you'll all check back this Thursday for a new question to toss around.

While paging through a magazine last week, I came across an article that posed an important question: "Is your virtual life taking over your real life?" The author began by relating a scene that was all too familiar to me. She was sitting at the computer in the morning. Her husband said goodbye as he prepared to go to work. She mumbled something back at him, and he left.

That's me, I thought. Every morning my husband sits beside me in the living room to put on his shoes and pet the dog while I'm writing or blogging. He might try to make conversation, but he rarely gets more than a grudging, muttered response. Eventually he gives up and leaves for work.

Seeing myself in that magazine article struck a chord with me. I do let my virtual life, and even more than that, my writing life, get in the way of my real life. How many times have I only half-listened (or even less than that) to one of my children tell me about his/her day, because he/she chose to tell me while I was answering emails? How many mornings has my husband gone off to work without so much as a goodbye because I was checking out the latest blog posts? Life is going on all around me. Am I missing it because I have my nose stuck in my computer?

The next morning, when my husband came downstairs to put on his shoes, I looked away from my computer and looked at him. I started a conversation. We talked and laughed. I even kissed him goodbye. When the kids came home from school, I ate a snack with them and coerced them into a game of Scrabble. My WIP and the blogosphere and my email inbox aren't going anywhere. My husband and kids are far less stationary.

I don't want to live a virtual life. I want to live my real life, right here and right now.

Until Thursday, happy writing, and may your coffee pot never run dry.