The Developing Need to Disconnect

For a long time, I was one of those people who needed sound around me all the time. I don't recall how it began. But something was always going, the TV, stereo or at night talk radio. I can't say whether it was some form of using sound as a kind of emotional babysitter.
Of course, this was during a time, where the level of intrusion was inherently less, before big screen HD mini movie theatres, cell phones, blackberries, laptops, ipods, ipads and the endless variety of electronics to which we have become 21st century heirs. 
What has finally gotten to me is that I have two phones, one for work, with connection to office e-mail and one for myself, with the work version buzzing like, all the time, even at night, and in my car. If my purse is with me in the restroom--there too. I can be reached everywhere, unless I am the one who SHUTS it all down. I think that my desire to "disconnect" is in part the result of entering what, if I am lucky, is the last third of my life. And this soul in progress needs to be meditating, even praying, and that really can only be done in quiet. I am coming to realize that all the demands on my time and my mind will, ultimately, be rendered meaningless. Maybe more so given my chosen career, not one that has much credibility any longer, the law, where truth is so malleable it is finally unrecognizable.
So these days, I actually am able to take an entire drive in my car without turning on the radio. I can make my coffee on Saturday without turning a switch to the "on" position, except the java maker itself. As these summer months are upon us, I sit outside more, before dark, watching the birds whisk from tree, to wire, to tree and back again. I hear the sounds of multiple chimes, the movement even of the leaves and I close my eyes and am at peace. Until my phone rings inside the apartment.
I still have a way to go.