A moment for day 26

Posted retroactively.

I am restless.

I am restless because I am bored. I am bored because I keep doing the same things over and over again. I need to come clean about how quickly listening to podcasts and playing mobile games have replaced the urge to scroll on my phone and zone out. While this alternative definitely has its merits, I have found that it too can be used as a tool to disconnect from my body and mind. I think there is absolutely a time and a place for spending time like this to recharge or take a break, but the key is in moderation.

By this morning, I officially shuffled between all the game apps I have on my phone endlessly, hoping for one to be the new and exciting dopamine hit I needed. Alas, I was left staring at a wall, in the wonderful apartment I was graciously allowed to stay in, thinking about how the hell I got myself here. Truth is, I started my stay at Lizzy’s with a brand-new mystery book and I finished it in 2 days flat. I was intersplicing my time with reading, playing with Tiki, talking with Lizzy and her roommates, and my mobile games and podcasts. It was great! It felt like days well spent! But for some reason when I finished the book, I just didn’t go out to my car and pick another one… I realized that with Wifi I had so many more mobile games to play and I spent that first morning doing just such. Quickly, morning turned to night and when the next day came it felt correct to spend my time the same way… But as I woke up today, I have to suffer through playing a round of Subway Surfers like I am being forced to play it. I have no clue why I am forcing myself to feel this way, when I am not only capable of acknowledging these feelings of boredom and restlessness, but it is within my control to give myself another activity.

I have wanted to start journaling about what I want my life to look like once I finish this trip. I want to talk about the routines I want to create and implement. I want to talk about what “after” will look like, but today’s realization has sent me spinning a bit. It is so incredibly easy to choose the easy thing, the thing that is right there in front of you, rather than reach two feet to your left and pick up a book or crochet or anything else. I am also not sure if it is strictly an issue of self-discipline (ignoring the psychology of screen-agers and iPad kids). By yesterday afternoon, I was fully aware of what I was doing to myself and my mood, but yet I continued down that path. I can’t say why… Maybe it is a lack of self-compassion for myself and just wanting to dwell in the situation that I had caused as some sort of punishment. Maybe it is a bit of nihilism that nothing we do during a give day really matters all that much so why not waste your time doing something easy. Maybe it is not knowing how much energy I have left to expend in the day, so my monkey brain decides that staying with the boring entertainment is better than leaving the home. I have no clue.

What I can say right now is that I need to ponder this more because it has made the urge to make routines very futile. So often, I spend time doing things that are beneficial for me until the energy to continue doing so is too much or I simply forget about the goal in the first place. I think that before I start to create routines of any kind I need to take an analysis of my life back in Golden. I need to be vulnerable with myself and with you all about where I am at and where I want to be. This balance of the three parts of myself is nuanced and while this trip has led me to identify the aspects and their interminglings, I have yet to really work out how this will all work when I return to real life…