Hi lovelies!

How are we today? It’s been so long since I posted a blog that wasn’t related to travel that I think I honestly forgot how to do it a little bit. I sat down & stared at the flashing caret with its canvas of white pixels for a good while before I decided to go in on this paragraph & just write. I think the thing that I was really wrestling with today was decided what was weighing on my mind & whether or not I wanted to have those thoughts claim space on this site & whether or not I wanted to give power to them by ‘speaking’ them aloud here. You see, if I’m being honest, I’m angry. Very much so, but in addition to that, I’m just emotionally & intellectually exhausted by everything happening here in The US politically.

That’s not what this blog is about. I promise you. So, don’t close out. I’m not here to rattle off facts or scream into the internet about how crazy all of this makes me feel, instead I want to talk about something I’ve noticed that I’ve been doing as a result of everything that’s happened in the last couple of weeks here in the states.

I think first & foremost it is worth noting that I am someone who likes to stay incredibly informed, much to the detriment of my mental health at times. I just really don’t like being in the dark & I have this crazy, stupid notion that by knowing who is doing what, where, & why, that maybe I can finally get the people close to me to see the light of reality & reason & step away from the autocratic, oligarchical, evangelical, fascist cult that currently occupies the majority of the highest offices here. That belief, of course, is misguided.

The reason I bring that up, is because lately I’ve fallen by the wayside. I have Evan asking me at the end of the day whether or not I saw something else horrific that was done by the people in charge today & most of the time of late I tell him no. Why? Because I can’t do it right now. I can’t continue consuming these depressing breaking news stories, they’re grinding me into a pulp & turning me into a person that I don’t think I like. So, whether I realized it or not until today, I’ve taken a step back from them.

If you’re on what is clearly the right side of history if you’ve ever even glanced into a history book, then I’m sure you too are utterly exhausted. It seems like every day there’s some new, worse thing that gets pushed through & it doesn’t seem like anyone is doing anything to stop it or slow it down. The system of proposed checks & balances has been blown to smithereens & every day we have a new constitutional crisis that ends up just being another evening of news. That’s the point.

The point of the blitzkrieg is to exhaust you, to make you apathetic, to make you complicit. We cannot allow that to happen, but you also can’t allow yourself to fall so deeply into dread, despair, & hatred that it takes you off the board, that it begins to leech into your system & corrupt your empathy, your fortitude, & your tenacity from the inside out. Sometimes you have to take the step back. Sometimes you need to stop the fight & take a breath.

I am not much of one for professional fights. MMA, boxing, etc., they don’t do much for me, but even in these sports, where the point is the fight, to overcome, they take breaks. Bouts are fought, rounds are competed in, but between each the contenders step to the side, catch their breath, recenter, get a drink & a pep talk, shake off the previous round, & get back on their feet to come back in swinging.

I think that’s where I am right now. I’m in the recess toweling off, finding my way back to center, rehydrating, resting so that when my energy is renewed & my legs once again flood with strength, I am ready to come back in & fight the good fight.

I think that’s important. No one has an infinite supply of endurance, no matter how strong they are. Eventually we all take a break or we end up breaking ourselves.

There’s something that I noticed in life, especially weaving in & out of industries where the work that is required is often go, go, go. Either you set aside time to stop & catch your breath or your body (or the powers that be) will do it for you. You’ll get sick, you’ll have a mental breakdown, you’ll crash & burn & it will be because you didn’t stop for the physical, spiritual, mental, intellectual, emotional maintenance along the way. The price must always be paid, the decision remains with you whether you pay it willingly on your own terms, or wait until this proverbial reaper comes wailing in & takes you out.

I didn’t want to write about politics today. I didn’t want to write about them the other day in my songwriting session either, but I feel that’s all that consumes me right now. It’s what drives me emotionally even though I wish so much that it was the last thing on my mind. I didn’t want to engage with that this week because it’s tender. I’m angry, heartbroken, exhausted, hurt, disheartened, & so tired of all of this going unchecked & unfettered, but that is not a place that I can healthily live every hour of every day of every week & neither can you.

Please take care of yourselves. Please take care of those around you. Please take care of those who find themselves on the targeted end of all of this & take care of your heart. Don’t let it be hardened by those who dismiss of your warmth, your kindness, your humanity as weakness. Your strength lies in your compassion & in the fact that all of this hurts so deeply. Outshine the dark my loves, just don’t do so at the cost of your light.

Much love to you all,

-C

After I smashed that “save & publish” button on last week’s blog & went about the internet to the various socials to post links so you all would know that it’s up & exists for you to dig your stunning little eyes into, I took a week long social media hiatus.

First off, let me acknowledge just how special, important, heroic, self sacrificing, & outright paramount I am for making that decision & going against the cultural & societal norms that inform our need to consume phone related snippets of content constantly. I know I am a monolith of courage & strength in these trying times. Secondly, if you don’t understand sarcasm, that was it, but I feel like that’s how we all behave when we “announce” our departure from our socials. We act as though we’re giving up a limb & as if our decision was the most refreshing, innovative thought to ever grace the idea space. It’s really not & I don’t think we should treat these breaks as novel things, they should be ingrained in us, because they are healthy. Anyway, here’s what I learned, what I felt in just the week I took off.

The rules were simple. No social media for a week with the singular exception of the daily allotted minute in which I could go into my messages & DMs to see if there was anything pressing that I needed to address. Outside of that there was to be no scrolling, no posting, no sharing, no engagement with the apps outside of answering the few things that needed to be answered & taken care of. The fast began at the time that I finished promoting my blog & ended this morning. Simple enough.

The first thing that I noticed was just how clear my mind felt. My thoughts didn't feel foggy or convoluted, in Scuba terms, my visibility went from a minimal amount of feet to 50-100 feet. Optimal dive conditions. I was able to process information, to make decisions, to form thoughts like I haven’t been able to do for years, probably since 2020 when we all got trapped inside & the only real thing to do was doom scroll into eternity until we all became massively addicted to the light boxes in our pockets. I felt more grounded & at home in my mind in a way that was refreshing.

The first & a half thing that I noticed, which coattails a little off of the previous point, was that I felt a lot more creative. I felt a lot more inspired, I was coming up with new melodies & songs randomly throughout my day instead of having to sit & try & force creativity to work in my favor. While I didn’t get the chance to full on sit & work on something creative during this time off, I am certain that it would have been an easy & enjoyable practice just based on the frequency & freedom in which ideas were flowing to me.

The second thing that I noticed was that I didn’t have the “doom scroll crave” that I normally do. By completely eliminating socials as an option my brain didn’t feel that pull to open up instagram, Tik Tok, or twitter & just scroll. This opened up a lot more time & space for me to do other things & in term made me a lot more productive & economical with my time. That being said, I found that not having the ability to scroll made time pass a lot slower, often to the point where I was often ready to be done with my day far before it was actually time to call it.

The third thing that I noticed was that my attention span was much improved. As someone with ADHD who is struggling to stay focused on this blog as I’m writing it because I know my phone is just a few feet away with the option of scrolling now that I can, I was actually wildly impressed with how much better I was able to maintain my attention span. I actually ended up getting pretty far along in a book that I’ve been reading for a while now & made my way through a few shows entirely focused on the plot & the goings on, without that constant tug to scroll.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, I have fallen back into the grips of social media having ended the fast this morning, especially Tik Tok. There's just something about it that feeds the dopamine meter in my brain in just the right way & I think I’ll need to put deeper limits on myself with it going forward. This morning I set my social media timer to one hour total for the day, of which I have already exceeded that because I often use social media in passing, splitting my attention while doing other things, in addition to using it as a messaging system.

All in all I think it’s incredibly healthy to step away from our socials from time to time. It allows us to reprioritize, to clear our minds, to put aside comparison, & rediscover our focus. I took my daily phone screen time from 6-7 hours down to 3-4 without it & I honestly thing I should have extended the break another half a week or more just to fully purge the need of it from my system. All things in moderation, right?

As always, much love to you all,

-C