being the main character even when i’m alone

on boundaries, existing alone & taking responsibility for my one wild and precious life

Recently, I have had a strong, unending urge to drop my phone from a great height. I want to stamp it in to little pieces with my Doc Martens. I want to use a hammer and pummel it to dust. And I want to take that dusk and put it in a small, cardboard box and I want to bury it deep in the earth. But, I can’t really do that. I need my phone for my family and my job and my friendships and to be at all a part of community in 2024. But I want to!!!!

the penny dropped (from 40,000 feet) 👁️👄👁️

While in the midst of a recent covid isolation, where my phone was my connection to a life outside my house, I found myself feeling incredibly low with the anxiety levels of someone being hunted for sport. I had been messaging friends about the various dramas in their lives, reading the news, engaging in popular culture. Eventually I had to get out of bed—it had been hours—and when I put my phone down I literally felt lighter. It was sunny. The window was open and there was new air filling my lungs. Sorry to be in insufferable but the second I put my phone down I felt better!

I took my husband by the shoulders and demanded eye contact. “You have to remind me to put my phone down!!! My life doesn’t happen in there!!! That’s not even my life!!!” This is not news! People have been saying this forever. But alas, I am here, years later, to finally agree. How brave of me.

Maybe it was the combination of good weather, isolation and several interpersonal dramas unfolding at once, but it has never been that starkly clear: the animal of me was not built for this, and pretending I am built for this is making me miserable.

I have spent so much of my life with an iron grip on my phone, convinced that people may need me at any second and how terrible it would be if they needed me and I wasn’t immediately there. I have made myself embarrassingly available even when I was not asked. Dropping everything and abandoning myself without hesitation. Keeping my phone in arms reach at all times, just in case.

it actually IS all about me 🥇

While it’s fun to talk about how violently I want to destroy my phone, what this is actually getting at is much deeper.

• I am prioritising other people.

• I am not checking in to see what I actually want or need.

• I am not taking responsibility for or control of my life.

• I am not being present or focusing on the things I want to be focusing on.

No one in my life would deny that I am the main character in my own existence. Of course, we all are, but what I mean is: I love attention and the people I spend time with know that. I am not hiding it (because then I wouldn’t, like, get attention???), but I’ve realised I only think of myself as the main character when others are looking. (This make me sounds insufferable and maybe I am but I’m also quite funny and will probably make you laugh.)

When I am alone, I lose my sense of self and fall back on other people to confirm I am real and validate my existence.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

- Mary Oliver

calling my oldest wisest self ☎️

What I wish I did instead is this:

• Be in touch with my body and understand how it feels physically and how my emotions are impacting that.

• Pause before engaging in anything and asking myself what is important for me to do today and what is going to help me to do.

• Re-establish my values so I can ensure my actions are in line with how I want to live.

• Be alone, despite (and especially because of) the discomfort and let my body and brain exist without stimulus.

• Pause, pause, pause. Let myself react however I do and then respond when I have been through all five stages of grief.

When I don’t have boundaries with myself and the way I engage with others, I do everyone a disservice. I love the people in my life better when I take care of myself and act mindfully and in line with my values.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

- Mary Oliver 

This is my life. I am solely responsible for it. I get to choose what I do and how I act. I take responsibility for how my lack of boundaries and conditions makes me feel. I know I have the power to change it. The soft animal of my body needs to step outside the little bubble that I let myself exist in that is attached to my phone and all the people on the other side of it – whether I know them personally or not.

I asked Simon the other night whether he prays to God, and he told me yes – ‘to say thank you’. And I think if I believed in God, I wouldn’t want to prostrate myself before him and ask for forgiveness. I would just want to thank him every day, for everything.

- Beautiful World, Where Are You? By Sally Rooney

In conclusion, to my harrowing disappointment, every single person who ever told me to get off my screens and go outside was right. No one is more upset about this than me. Going to touch grass now and thank the universe for this stupid little life. Love you.