Often times I’m awake in the morning when mom wakes up. As to whether I’m just waking up and having coffee or winding down and getting ready for bed is another story but usually I’m on my computer checking on my sites, email, or reading my feeds. The routine is pretty much the same for morning or night: Check on the sites, follow up on any messages, look at the news, and maybe write a blog post or read a few blogs depending on how much time I have or how tired I am.
Mom wakes up and throws a monkey wrench in things. She likes to chat in the morning which in and of itself isn’t a problem. Chatty mom becomes a problem when I’m trying to concentrate on something (like reading or writing) and mom keeps interrupting my thought process. I cannot help but get annoyed because it’s not like we’re having an actual conversation. After we say our good mornings I go back to what ever I was doing and mom turns on the TV. With in a few minutes comes the little comments about what’s on the news. I’m still not so sure her comments are directed at me but since I’m the only one else awake I tend to think she’s talking to me. Invariably there will a “Can you believe that” or “I keep telling you people are nuts these days” blurted out. A majority of the times my reply is “Yeah, I know I read it earlier” because I read the news long before she got up.
After a few of Mom’s interjections I get annoyed because every time she talks I have to respond which makes me lose my place in whatever I’m doing. Then a light bulb goes off in my head and I say I’m obviously not going to get anything done while until mom has her second cup of coffee and gets on her computer so I turn off my monitor and go sit in the living room. For someone reason once I sit in the living room mom’s no longer chatty. I wind up grabbing my laptop iPod and to play a game, check my email, or start drafting a post such as this one and mom starts talking again. It amazes me every day that the minute I’m concentrating on something else Mom wants to talk. After a couple times of being interrupted I sigh and put the iPod down and watch what ever brain sucking show mom is watching for a bit. That normally gets an “Am I bothering you” from mom. Then I feel guilty.
I feel guilty for even getting annoyed in the first place as I know that someday mom won’t be around to chat with and don’t want her to feel she’s a bother because she’s really not except for the interjections part 
. It’s not that I don’t want to chat with mom because I do. I think the problem is we’re not having a regular conversation it’s little interjections, blurbs if you will. Me being me I like to keep my mind occupied. So, if I’m not interested in what’s going on I start doing something else. When I’m doing something and get interrupted I get annoyed. It’s why I keep my instant messengers off most of the time. Heck as I’m writing this a friend and I are texting and I’m annoyed because my phone keeps going off when I’m in mid sentence here.
Over the past few years Mom and I have had a couple of discussions about this mainly due to my sister who is perpetually bored interrupting me with dumb questions while I’m busy doing something I really have to pay attention to like working on a database or some other geeky thing. It wound up that mom got the hint too and now when she starts talking to me when I’m at the computer she asks ‘Are you working?’ even if I am I normally say No because I’ve already been interrupted by the question so I should just see what she wants.
I’ve tried to deal with interruptions in a few different ways my best solution was to simply close my bedroom door which worked out quite well. However, I soon realized it made others feel like shutting them out and I was but not to be mean just to keep my blood pressure down! After I realized that I was unintentionally causing some hurt feelings I started leaving my bedroom door open again. It’s weird because for me it gets pretty monotonous and even more boring when your behind a closed door and don’t have those little interruptions yet those little interruptions can annoy the living crap out of me.
The big problem at least in my opinion is that even though computers connect you to the world through the internet they cut you off to real life around you. As your concentration needs to be on what ever your doing on the computer so you’re not paying attention to those around you. I imagine a lot of computer centric people share the same sediments about interruptions.
My new plan is to just not try doing anything on the computer in the morning once mom wakes up. I’ll sit and have coffee with her and once she goes on her computer I can go do what I have to do. If I really need to concentrate on something I’ll just close my door until I’m done.
How do you deal with interruptions?
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