Drowning in a Virtual World

I had an epiphany yesterday. Maybe I am late with this but, my gosh, I don't have a life.

It dawned on me when I paused our movie during movie night to run to the toilet and made a pit stop before coming back. No, I wasn't grabbing more drinks and popcorn. I had to stop and feed my virtual Facebook fish before they died.

I already had one tank-full of virtual mini-dart Gobis go belly up and I didn't want to waste my virtual money on virtual dead fish that were just going to add virtual scum to my virtual fish tank. I mean, really!

Having to scrub my nonexistent fish tank with silly yellow virtual sponges is really annoying when I'm trying to get ready for work. And it doesn't help that some of the virtual fish ate my other virtual fish.

It doesn't stop at my fake fish in my nonexistent tank though. I have more friends online than I see all year long. I see my family on Facebook and Myspace more than in real life.

We've skipped emails and are now yapping away publicly on Facebook about coffee on Sunday and our family lineage. It's almost like standing in a crowded mall and yelling, "Hey Dad! I'm coming over for coffee on Sunday!" and everyone starts adding their comments back.

It's actually a little disconcerting sometimes. I forget we're discussing real life on Facebook and the next comment is from someone I never met offering to bring cake or cookies. I don't know who this person is. I don't remember her face. And she's offering to bring cake? Really? Chocolate will be fine. We meet at 11.

While at Dad's house for Thanksgiving dinner, it really sunk in when Dad had one of those "when I was your age..." moments. You know what I'm am talking about. Yep. Dad had one of those.

We were all in the living room, silently texting each other. Dad looked around, smiled and said, "You know, when I was your age we actually spoke to the people in the room."

We all looked up from our texting and laughed ... and then sent texts with "LOL" to everyone else in the room.

But when my virtual fish dying trumps my movie night, I know I need to get a real life. So this week I am going to stay off the computer, except for work.

I have to feed my kids and pay bills after all. I am going to spend my time doing things like feeding real fish and visiting my dad and mom in person. I am going to revamp my life this week and experience it like I did before my Facebook-fish-feeding-frenzied days! I am going to LIVE again and quit worrying about virtual fish and virtual fish food. You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter and on my blog to watch my progress.

Authors Note: I wrote this at the end of January. I already completed my computer free week.