Cyber Life

This week, as my Yahoo went haywire (apparently along with a lot of other people's), I became keenly aware of how wrapped up my life is in the Internet.
 
Now, this might seem odd coming from a person who posts a blog online every day. Of course my life is wrapped up in the Internet, right? What I discovered, however, is that there was far more I couldn't do than get email. With my Yahoo mail gone south, I couldn't retrieve old emails whose senders' addresses I needed. I couldn't retrieve coupons or offers that had been sent to me, or links related to my kids' schools. Worse yet, I couldn't even know what I was missing, since I, well, couldn't know what I was missing. I would like to say that it was a lovely feeling of being unreachable--disconnected--as if on vacation--but it turned out to be agitating on more levels than I could believe.
 
Underlying it all was the issue of control with which I imagine we all struggle. We all like to believe that we can control our circumstances, and that even if there are many things beyond our control, the day-to-day stuff is well within our tight grasp. For me, email is part of that sense of control. In just moments, I can schedule child care and meetings and coffees and work. I can save $3 here and $5 there, and feel informed about what's going on with my friends and in my community. And I can delegate and administer. I can be in control.
 
I am still receiving emails that were sent days ago about events that are over, but I have hope that my mailbox, and my sense of control will return very soon.
 
I guess it's all just a hazard of living the cyber life.