Digital Balance

Tomorrow morning I begin a new chapter in my life. I will work from home for the first time on a permanent basis. At my previous job I was able to work from home occasionally if we worked on a weekend or holiday, but with my new job home will be my...home base (pardon the intended pun). I will be based at home and occasionally go into the office.

Before I worked off a screen smaller than the size of my 13" MacBook Pro while sitting uncomfortably at the dining room table or awkwardly on the couch. Now I have my own office. And this office...wait for it...has a window. An actual window. (I'm using lots of ellipses tonight in honor of my husband who uses them...constantly. If you ever receive a text message from me with more than one set in the same message, he has hijacked my phone.) I'm so thankful for this opportunity. And it would not be possible if not for the digital age in general.

Everything is digital now, even pictures, songs, and books. I get scolded by the Jamie's grandmother frequently for not sending pictures. Jamie's parents and mine are all on Facebook now so they get their fix that way. Thank God for Shutterfly. They turn my digital pictures into printed memories that I can easily hit a button on my phone and send to Grandmother.

With everything digital now I wonder if something has been lost. That personalized touch, perhaps. My friend over at http://unwrittenwordblog.blogspot.com is doing her best to fight for handwriting. She makes notebooks and is a pen/ink enthusiast. She has bookcases full of notebooks filled with her handwritten words. Someday her great grandchildren will discover them in boxes in a dusty attic and will get to know her through the curve of her letters and the pressure she used on certain words. It makes me think of what treasures I'm leaving for my great grandchildren. An old jump drive that will probably break and no back up. I'm beginning to make an effort to write to my children and even my husband in my handmade journals. There are things I want to share with them where an email or word.doc wouldn't have the same meaning.

I started thinking about all of this when big brother handed me a small snipped off corner of a paper the other day and asked me what it said.

His first note, and from a girl I might add. I'm not sure what it says, but it has meaning that couldn't have been captured in a text message. Of course, my first thought was to take a picture of it so we could always have it in the form of a digital picture. Like with all things in life, a healthy dose of digital balance might not be a bad thing.