Unplugged (12/04/2024)

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I’m on a pretty consistent 1 am to 8:30 am sleep schedule as determined by my body’s clock.

Most days, I still use an alarm, but last night I was feeling strangely congested and sick, and I swear I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow. When I woke up this morning, my phone had 1% battery — just enough to glance at the time, 8:32, before it passed away in my hands.

I’d forgotten to plug it in.

It’s Wednesday, but I’m not scheduled to work today, so the day is entirely mine. That’s why I wasn’t thinking too much about getting my phone and things in order last night. My body demanded sleep.

Normally, I struggle with these unstructured days. This has been true since I graduated from college earlier this year. An open day means I can do ANYTHING (one of the great joys and terrors of adulthood).

On a typical day, when my phone gets its full seven hours beside me, I wake up to a barrage of texts, reminders, and calendar events fighting for my attention. Suddenly, an open day becomes packed with THINGS TO DO. Respond to those folks. Check in with that editor. Plan that trip. “Your automatic payment is coming up!” Oh, right — I should review that. “We still on for tennis this weekend?” Yes, though my knee hurts. Did I sleep on it weird? Did I schedule that doctor’s appointment? I need better shoes.

Suddenly, I’m booked! The weight of all that to-do-ness is often enough to make me roll over, hit snooze, and return to the land where everything is frozen. The land where I pretend not to know.

I’m not proud of this tendency to look at my phone right when I wake up. It’s something I’ve thought I’d conquered at multiple points in my life. I’ve slept with my phone across the room. Switched out my phone alarm for an alarm clock. Often, I’ll schedule calls or meetings early in the morning simply because I know that if I have to wake up for something like that, I can delay the wave of unexpected “to-do”’s until I hang up.

But each time, whether it’s a day, a month, or a year into my efforts, my phone tends to find its way back to my bedside. It feels inevitable. A dimension to my self-discipline that remains eternally in-progress.

NOTE: I guess there’s another possible entry here about why my electronic companion ends up there at night… Something about an exhaustion-fueled recoiling into that vast social network that asks only the movement of one thumb…

But that entry is for another day. TODAY, it’s about the wake-up. And how it feels different to break that pattern. Normally, when my phone dies, a little bit of panic sets in as I’m separated from my technological drug of choice (again, not proud). But today, with a flexible schedule, only a doctor’s appointment and a tennis match in the afternoon, I feel safe letting my phone sleep for a bit. I spring at the opportunity to be alone. Instead of looking at what my friends are doing in Ecuador and Prague, or which one of my peers is now on the Forbes 30 under 30 list (that was yesterday’s morning scroll)… I get out of bed, drink a big glass of water, and pour frozen fruit, oat milk, and a banana into a blender. I sip on a mug of coffee while my ingredients blend into a beautiful mush. After all that, I step into the shower. No music, no podcast. Just me and my thoughts… eek.

After combing my hair and brushing my teeth, I put the laundry that I folded last night into the correct drawers. Still feeling congested from my mysterious sickness, I spray some Afrin in each nostril. I suspect the illness came from a Friendsgiving dinner last Friday. I think to myself that even if true, it was worth it. As I spray, for no particular reason, I think about my friend Mariah, whom I lived with while abroad. What is she up to these days? I don’t text her right now. I will soon though. I think about her a lot.

Resisting the urge to plug in my phone, I finish unpacking one of my bags from my trip to New York last week and rearrange the items on my desk. There’s a big window above my desk that looks out at a tree that could very well be dying. A familiar squirrel has chosen a popular spot between two branches to strip a pinecone of its seeds. It’s December, so maybe he’s saving some seeds in his cheeks. I can’t tell. He doesn’t see me.

At this point, I’m more than eager to check my phone. I worry that there are things that need addressing. Updates that I’ve missed. People who have questions that only I know the answer to.

I feel, however selfishly, as if I’m in demand. It’s only been an hour since I woke up. I know I have a to-do list that I’m deliberately not checking. I also know that that to-do list will rearrange when I check my usual digital haunts in the morning. G-mail. Instagram. The LA Times. But for now, I choose to remain in the blissful unplugged state, knowing that the tasks I choose to complete are manageable.

I brush my teeth.

I don’t feel overwhelmed by the day, or the week, as I so often do. Six months after graduation, I still feel that I’m in this limbo between academia and my REAL LIFE. After 18 years in school and 6 months out of it, there are still days where l feel unequipped for The Real World™… that maybe there’s some THING, maybe some new JOB, that I’m waiting for which will deliver me to stable adulthood. And often, I find myself expecting that THING to arrive via my phone. After all, I’ve spent months digitally networking, applying to jobs, scouring LinkedIn, and building/sharing projects to get noticed. Many of my professional successes have felt rooted in the online world. But when I get a morning like this, I remember the truth: every job I’ve gotten since graduating came not just from an online application but from speaking to someone in real life. Leaving my house. Touching grass, as they say.

I have this delusion that I need to be tuned in to everything happening online because that’s where I’ll find what I’m “supposed” to be doing. That’s how I’ll maintain necessary connections and where I’ll be able to know what to prioritize and what to deprioritize. (I believe a huge F*CK YOU is in order for the tech giants of our age that hammer this idea my head at every turn.)

This morning, unplugged, I step out of that delusion for a bit. I’m reminded that my attention is a resource, and online companies want me to spend it on their apps, accounts, products, clients, whatever. It takes deliberate effort not to hear to the buzz of the world when it’s always available at my fingertips. And while I still slip — daily, it feels — this morning, it’s a little easier to ignore the buzz. Easier to tend to the delicate garden of my mind instead.

I relish this incremental progress.

Right now, my phone is sitting on its charger. When I’m done writing, I’ll tidy my room, drink another glass of water, take my computer off Do Not Disturb, and begin my tasks for the day. I’ll keep practicing patience. Practicing presence.

Meanwhile, the squirrel will keep working on his pinecone.

It’s a beautiful day.