Fitting My Online Life Around CFS

I never wanted a computer. Back in 1993, I couldn't think of any useful purpose for owning one. Alan needed one for school. He was taking Journalism at the college, and it was pretty much a necessity.
All I could think about was the expense, which at the time seemed like a lot of money. He was on Workers' Compensation due to some work-related injuries, and they were sending him to school.
I wasn't working because we both thought it was important for me to be home with our children, ages 3 - 11, who we were homeschooling. Money was extremely tight.
He said, "You could put recipes in it."
I said, "I have a box for recipes. What do I want to put them on a computer for?"
Fortunately, necessity won out, and he found a second-hand computer that was within the budget (more or less). He used it for schoolwork, along with a dot matrix printer. And I ignored it.
Eventually I found that it was a great tool for the little plays I was putting together at our church, but that was the extent of it for me.
In 1997, he said he thought we should get online.
I said, "What do we need to go online for?"
Once again I was thinking of the expense, and once again I couldn't see any sense to it.
He said he needed it in order to be able to send in his articles to the two newspapers he was working for. It would save him driving the one hour round-trip to one office, and the two hour round-trip to the other, in order to submit his work. It would save him time and money in the long run, he said.
I still didn't like it but I couldn't refute his reasoning. So against my better judgment (I thought) we went online.
I'm so glad he was right and I was wrong.
In 1998, he was through school, and not finding a lot of work in journalism in our area. We looked online for opportunities to make some money. We found a teeny weeny website called Ncubator.com, that maybe one day might possibly be able to pay its writers once it got big enough. We frankly had nothing better going on and began to write our heads off.
Eventually we took over the care and grooming of Ncubator and some of the best fun of my life began.
We wrote articles. Eventually 50 other people were writing and submitting articles to us. I was regularly in contact with people from all over the world. We corresponded with many of our writers like old friends. Which we were by that time. Nobody made any money but I think we all loved it.
We posted four new articles a week for five years. Al created a directory and submissions from websites started pouring in. It became massive. He put on a search engine. He created a forum which I moderated.
All this led to people sending me books to write reviews for them. I started making a little money doing some editing and proofreading. I also moderated a friend's forum for awhile as well.
I ignored my brain fog and buzzing appendages, refused to buckle to the exhaustion as much as I could. Crashed when I couldn't. And when I'd recoup, I'd get up and do it again.
The word "Depleted" kept appearing in my head (like an idiot light on a car's dashboard) for two years before I paid proper attention.
By 2001 I was too cooked to be able to write any more articles. But I was still editing and posting other people's work. I was still moderating both forums. Until eventually it was all more than I could do. I had been sent to bed exhausted and bamboozled, having to sleep it off, too many times. I dropped our friend's forum.
By the fall of 2003, I knew I was finished but I hated the fact. I had had one more bout of tendinitis that left me gimpy in one arm, I was a sick cookie who couldn't think straight.
Our children needed a shot at one day again having a mother they could see and converse with, a mother who could understand what they were saying, and do more than ... nothing, for them.
I threw in the towel. I waved the white flag. Weakly. Shakily.
I laid my head down for the final time, and said "Uncle", and we pulled the plug on my beloved Ncubator.com. And I lost a huge part of my life in the process.

Back to Ancient History

�

Back to Articles Page