My social media pause

It's been a week and a half since I deleted Facebook, Instagram, and Threads from my phone and closed those tabs on my laptop browser.  I've tried to write this post about three times over the last few days and it always feels incomplete so I put it off for another day.  I think it is really easy to write about all the positive effects I'm feeling but I struggle to put into words the ongoing struggles.  And when I was sick last week, I struggled in general with clarity.

I really appreciate that my attention span is coming back.  I read The Parable of the Sower in its entirety last week.  I'm not quite half-way through the audiobook of Pride and Prejudice and last night I started a Christina Lauren romantic comedy that it appears I'm already almost halfway through.  And this incredibly challenging puzzle of the Earth Goddess keeps taking shape.  I would have long given up by now if it weren't for eliminating the distraction of social media.

I am also really enjoying watching my creativity flow more freely.  I've written a number of pieces and have more thoughts to contemplate from yesterday's voice notes on my hike.

Although my illness put a wrench in it last week, I am getting out more and making more plans.  Last weekend it was several nights of drinks with friends.  Yesterday it was the hike.  Last Thursday was going to be the art museum which I'll reschedule.  I'm trying to make lunch plans with a friend this week.  Another friend is talking about a game night at her house although we haven't set a date yet.  And maybe I'll even go watch a film this evening.

But even with all those positives now filling up so much of my time, I feel like I'm left with my ruminating mind even more than normal.  I suppose that speaks to the volume of time that used to disappear into algorithms.  It's no longer just the nights I can't sleep that I feel stuck, it's also pieces of the daytime hours.  It's frustrating because I felt like I had gotten to a place where even my nights weren't interrupted often back in December and even early January and now I'm regressing further and further.

The catalyst for deleting those apps from my phone was catching myself navigating to my ex-husband's Instagram page.  I thought that by taking away that temptation, I could start to steer my thoughts away from him.

How long until I stop replaying conversations and events?  How long until the dialogue of things I wish I could say stops?  How long until I make enough sense of what I went through and how to avoid it in the future to move forward?  How long until I can let go of that which I know will never make sense to me?

As I sat one evening in my oversized chair looking out at the world, I tried to turn over in my mind the bond that still exists in some form despite the incredible progress I've made.  It doesn't feel like a bond developed from love anymore, maybe it never was about love.  It feels like he fucked with my mind so much that I don't know how to fully unwind the damage.

There is an untitled sculpture by Christopher Wool at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden in Washington DC.  It looks like a giant tangled web of wire.  When I was there about a year and a half ago as I was waiting for my divorce to be finalized, I spent time sitting with this particular sculpture as it seemed to speak to me.  I tried to find an end and follow the wire through the tangles and quickly got lost.  There is a rigidity to it that feels difficult to overcome.  After a year and a half, recognizing the progress I have made, I wonder how much more there is to go.