Virtually Existing.

I actually went out the other day. I felt the sun's warmth kiss my pale skin, with its unhealthy grey pallour, so typical of the student (or other long-term prisoner). I noticed that the crocuses were out, the daffodils were starting to sprout, and that I had missed the snow drops altogether. Spring was upon us, and I had almost let it pass unnoticed.

Obviously I do go out, to do the school run, or for some vital errand that can't be done online, but I have been so engrossed with study that I just don't notice anything any more. I don't meet people if I can email them, or go shopping if I can get it online. Even going out for a walk has become something I do just to stop myself seizing up at my desk. I just don't stop to enjoy anything any more, and I seem to live in a virtual world, because it saves time.

My husband has just been invited to compete in an international Formula One race. He meets up every week with a load of friends from all over the world, and races against them. He speaks to them almost every day, and knows them really well. In reality, it's a virtual race taking place online, against people he's never actually met. Can you call these real relationships? I call him a sad techy git, but that's another matter - we all do it these days.
I had resisted this way of life until starting my course, but am now as bad as anyone else, but I don't ever want to forget that there's a real world out there.

So I'm going to try and work a couple of hours a week into my schedule, just to sit and notice things, to meet a real person for lunch, or go to a shop and touch the real clothes hanging on the rails, or go for a walk, and actually see what's happening around me. I'm trying to get this course finished in three years, but I don't want to feel as though I've wasted three years of my precious life when I might as well have been behind bars.