Staying connected is becoming more complicated, not that that is anything new. It seems that I am always looking for charging cords or trying to keep up with my Coursera courses or squashing magazines into my brain between novels or madly reading everything including cereal boxes while simultaneously emailing my friends and colleagues and keeping track of Facebook. I listen to podcasts while practicing my ukulele, playing with my birds, and planning a conference. It’s madness and I can feel my brain fibres spinning out like Medusa’s head snakes, equally cranky and writhing.

It’s too much and I notice the stress is showing, as I become more scattered. I feel a bit like one of those over tasked electrical outlets, starting to get hot and sparking now and then. Not quite ablaze, but getting pretty damn close.

It’s time to take control, organize my brain, stop the endless distractions, I tell myself.
And yet – the connections to the world are important. I need my contacts to push away my existential loneliness, to shrug away depression, to enlighten my life. Time spent with friends is vital, learning equally so. I must have new input to keep moving – like my electronic devices, I need a current in to keep producing out.

So I’m revisiting Morning Pages to sort out my thoughts. And I’m using a very good visualization a counsellor gave me – every night I sever all the ties that bind and connect me, and go to sleep. The next morning, I reattach those connections that I want to keep for that day.

Today I have a few re-attachments to do, but I’m going to try to be focused. Got things to do. But let me just check FaceBook quickly…