Since the day I started my first full-time job, I have been online all day every day during the work week. That’s five days a week, approximately nine hours a day, approximately 250 days per year for a total of eight years, or in other numbers 2,250 hours spent online (don’t check my math, just know it’s likely wrong).

Yes, there were times when work took me out of the office (read: away from the Internet), specifically the thirteen grueling days of the Tribeca Film Festival. I was fully off the grid during that insanity. But other than that, I have sat at a desk in front of a computer to do my work, and that computer has been connected to the Internet.

I didn’t sit on Facebook or Gchat all day long…exactly, but I popped in several times throughout the day for long conversations with friends all over the country. Some days I would have my Gmail open all day long so chats would just come in as I worked. On those days R and I would chat all day long about the myriad things you have to talk about when you share a life: christmas gifts, dinner plans, cleaning supplies we may or may not need. I became an insanely adept multi-tasker able to follow along with a friend’s devastating break-up story and a pre-production conference call at the same time. If a “major story” hit, I knew about it from my thrice-daily check of my favorite online “news” portals (Deadline.com, TheDailyBeast.com, Gawker.com). There was very little that I missed, and that includes both social and actual news (if there’s any difference any more).

Since the day I left my last full-time job three weeks ago, I have been online one to two hours per day, if that.

Yes, there are times when I sign into Gchat to check my mail and get involved in a 45 minute convo with a friend, but those are fewer and further between these days. Now R comes home with a mental list of all the things we would have talked about during the day. I’ve contemplated taking notes at the dinner table.

Part of the reason I’m not online all day is because I am busy working on a few projects, and I’ve (blessedly) never been able to multi-task while writing.  But most of the reason I’m not online for longer period of time, even when I’m not specifically writing, is because it feels weird to be sitting at your home office (read: kitchen table) on Gchat or Facebook or Twitter. Like somehow when I was at work it was totally fine to blow hours at a time reviewing the weddings of everyone who got married within the past month, but now that I’m home charting my own independent life, it’s outrageous. How could I waste my time like that!? What if someone sees me just sitting her wasting my time?! The guilt! Oh the guilt!!

And so, for the first time in the two years since I moved to LA, I feel lonely.

People told me this would happen. They warned that your first few weeks of writing full-time are a weird adjustment, and that the main feeling you’ll have is loneliness. They advised that I set up lots of coffees and lunches throughout the week to diversify my time. They even suggested I allow myself time every day to sit online and Gchat with all the people I used to talk to every single day. I’ve started to do all those things, and I’m sure the “culture shock” will pass in time. But it’s all got me thinking about how connected I really was when I was connected all day long.

Last week I called Carly on the telephone because I wanted to check in on her and Baby Zadie. I used to talk to Carly on Gchat four out of five days a week. Now we are both home (her with a baby, which seems way more legit), and both offline. We talked for 20 minutes, and it was awesome. I think I’ll call her again today, actually.

I have a feeling that I’ll eventually like this new version of my non-online life. I think the clutter I didn’t realize was cluttering your brain will slowly start to dissipate making it easier for me to focus (sometimes I have an urge to jump on Facebook while I’m writing, and I have to fight that urge like whoa). And I think I’ll find ways to stay connected to everyone I used to “talk” to every day. I have a feeling that may involve actually talking to them, which seems like it could be really nice.