5 MINUTE FRIDAYS - HERE

Today is 5 minute Fridays - the day where we write for 5 minutes without editing, without tweaking, without our inner critic chiming in - about a word supplied by Lisa Jo Baker. If you want to read more visit here. The word today is "here."

Ready. Set. Go!

I tend to be a distracted, oblivious sort of person. I can be standing next to you, nodding my head, appearing to be here with you, but inside, my mind is a million miles away.

The age of the computer and all the techno gadgets we now have on hand does not help me in this area. It's why I have a simple tracphone that just makes phone calls. I don't text. I don't use a bluetooth (anybody but me answer someone using those and then realize to your mortification they weren't actually talking to you?).

But the truth is, even without an iphone, I am often not "here." I am fretting about the past and if I messed up. I am worrying about the future and how I'll get there. I am so often not present in the here and now. I'm often distracted and not giving anything or anyone my full attention.

Lately, it has hit me with full force how little time I have left with my boys - especially my oldest son. He's 14 years old and finishing his freshman year of high school. Four years from now, I will be frantically planning his graduation party (and wondering why I didn't organize all his pictures earlier like I had planned! lol). Four years. That's it. Then he's launched into the world or at least to the community college.

I don't want to waste those years by being here in body, absently nodding but not really listening. Not really being HERE with my whole self.

This was driven home to me when I overheard my son saying that, "Yeah, mom's always on the computer."

OUCH!

The truth is, he was right. I do spend WAY too much time on the computer, and not for working purposes either. Just frittering away time. Here in the house but not really present. Available to my kids, but not really.

It happened innocently enough. In a household of all guys, who watch sports all the time, I would drift into the den and plop down at the computer. But it grew from during the game, to when I got up in the morning, after I came home from picking the kids up or being out. I became tethered to my computer, and well, sort of addicted to surfing the net.

These days, I have made a conscious decision to step away from the computer. Because of my newspaper work, I do have to check my email at least once on the evenings of deadline days to make sure everything is okay, but other than that, my goal is to not be on here in the evenings when my kids are home. I have also been trying (pretty unsuccessfully lately, to be honest) to unplug on the weekends. I've stopped jumping on here before I do my quiet time and have found my mornings much more productive.

Technology can be a great tool, but as my Mom always used to say - "enough is enough."

What's the biggest threat to you being "here"?

~ Blessings, Bronte

NOTE: I did a book review of my good friend Amber Payne's book Breathtaking, the Revised Edition over at Circles of Faith. I'd love if you would hop on over here and check it out! :)