Hello. My Name Is Robert. I Am an Addict.

("Ann Patchett: I Signed Up for email in 1995. I Still Regret It.")

Stop the world, I want to get off. 

I have developed an email tic through the years. An uneasiness in my bones unless I reflexively check my phone or my computer every few minutes. Often much more frequently. Surreptitiously when I am in the company of my family who are generally genuinely annoyed that I am looking to see if there is something more interesting, anything really, than engaging with them, with my surroundings. My almost daily hikes often interrupted not to survey the beauty and majesty of nature but to gaze at the latest salvo of nouns and verbs arriving for review.

While I am so busy worrying what I might be missing, I am busy missing what might be. I don't stop to smell the roses because I don't notice them. I am absorbed, obsessed with a reality which leads to my being far removed from reality. Residing someplace other than where I am. Living inside a world that keeps me from living in the outside world.

I often wait for communications that I know will very likely not be forthcoming. Like from you in response to this very email. Seeking affirmation, confirmation of something, though I am not quite certain what. To what end, I ask myself. To what end?

Email in the wrong hands is an addiction. My name is Robert. I am an addict.