At Last, Someone Else Who Laments the Loss of Disappearances…

Not sure if you saw my post the other day about The Travelers by Chris Pavone.  If not, check it out.  If so you saw this one already but I think it bears repeating.  As I’ve mentioned, I’m on a bit of a getaway with The Husband.  It’s glorious.  But it’s still not disappearing, like vacations used to be.  You know what I mean – back in the day, you’d go somewhere fun (or even not so fun, teehee) and you’d be gone.  Completely.  Maybe you’d send a postcard, but that was the only real communication with your “real” life back home.  Not so these days.  Everyone expects pictures and updates, tweets about what you’re doing and where you’re doing it.  Cell phones and laptops mean work still expects the occasional check-in, as do family and friends.  It’s nice on one hand, don’t get me wrong – I do enjoy an extra beach picture to distract me during the day when I’m trapped in Toddler Hell and need to imagine myself somewhere Other, and I do love that I can keep tabs on said Toddler while she’s staying with the Grandparents (both sets!) while we are gone.  But I miss being able to GO AWAY.  I often wonder if I’m the only – apparently not…

She doesn’t want to be reachable, doesn’t want to be findable, and that’s not so easy. It was only fifteen years ago when people used to go on vacations and weren’t heard from for a week or two, in Guatemala or Tanzania or New Zealand, or not even so exotic, just a weeklong rental in Rehoboth, camping in the Poconos. They didn’t post pictures on social media, they didn’t answer calls or emails or text messages. Vacation meant you were just not around. Perhaps you were missed or needed or wanted, perhaps not, but either way, everyone dealt with it.

That’s from The Travelers – an extraordinary book, that you should definitely read.  But even if you don’t, think about those words, and maybe just maybe about what we’ve lost by being instantaneously interconnected all the time…  We’ve gained a lot, sure, but we’ve definitely lost something I think is essential too – the ability to disappear, to hide, to lose ourselves.  The ability to just be where we are, in that moment, rather than to constantly be physically (instead of just emotionally) tethered to every aspect of our lives and selves at once.  Maybe I’m just a Luddite (I truly dislike a lot of technology, teehee, and not just because it disliked me first), but some days I wish the power would just go out for a day/two…  🙂