Maybe this really is a crutch

I mean that in a positive way. Crutches are something you lean on, temporarily, until you heal enough to walk normally again when your leg is broken. Crutches are also sometimes things you need permanently to replace function that was lost that you can't gain back or never had in the first place. They're a tool. They're only a bad thing when your continued use delays healing and normal function.

I think the fact that I am missing more days here and there suggests that this is a crutch in that former sort of healthy way. Either temporarily or permanently.

Yesterday was still fairly productive in any case; I went to the dentist (less fun than I was expecting if I'm being honest, and it's already hard to expect fun at the dentist) and submitted a job application, and did a workout (that actually challenged me- this is to fix my hypothyroid-destroyed core muscles), and cleaned the bathroom (something I aim to do weekly now that I am getting paid to do it elsewhere). I also had a nice date with my husband and went to bed early. All in all... pretty excellent. It was also the first day in this whole thing that I didn't really think about social media as much.

That's normal, I think. When you remove something from your life, it's normal to feel its absence at first. Especially something you spent a LOT of time using. Something that dictated a lot of your life. I don't love that I'm saying that, but it's true. The way I approach the world and information and my life and who I am feels really different. It turns out that when you aren't constantly bombarded by the opinions of random people and when you aren't constantly barraged with a flood of information, you feel different.

I'm still taking in opinions and information, of course, but I have more time to sit with it thoughtfully and hear people out. I'm not getting in as many arguments- at some point I thought I was very argumentative, but I think the nature of the online world makes people that way. I really don't argue with people in my real life that much, which is both good (I'm not as abrasive as I thought) and bad (sometimes I need to stand up for myself and my thoughts). In either case, it's a lot more peaceful. 

The urge to constantly share information with others has not changed and I'm starting to doubt it ever will. Lo and behold (I'm learning I use that saying more than I thought), I'm still a social person with strong interpersonal skills. The skills assessment from Gallup that I took at a conference in 2019 and later paid $67 for the full report from is decently accurate- most of my innate skills are in relationship building. I play nicely with others. As a result of playing so nicely with others, I got a lot of nice, thoughtful, and kind feedback on stories I'd share from time to time. What I just remembered now is the way I'd sometimes directly solicit that kind of engagement only to not receive it, and how bad that felt. I'd wonder if I said something too abrasive, too harsh, too unrelatable. Were people cringing at me? Were the people who just swiped on past even watching the stuff I put up? I took it so personally. I don't have to deal with that anymore. It was like watching myself try to be an influencer on a small scale, and it was painful. 

Once again though I have to reiterate that I'd pay a monthly subscription to access the features of something like snapchat or instagram without the ads and the other explore page content. I'd pay for fewer features. I'd pay to have apps that allowed me the things I want from them (connection) without the things I don't (distraction). I wish I could use instagram sans explore page. I wish I could use snapchat sans the shitty stories from people and brands and companies I don't know. I wish facebook was just actual updates from friends and family. I think those parts of those services really do tap into something we all want.

My mom and I actually had a really good discussion the other night that was partly about this. She got facebook years ago but barely uses it, and that's the only social media she has. She doesn't even know how to delete friends; I had to promise her I'd show her how to remove a friend's ex-husband from her friends list. She pretty much just signs on to say thank you to birthday wishes and check updates from family far away, about once a month. The rest holds no appeal for her. It was interesting to hear her speak about the way she uses the internet- she watches a lot of old and cheesy sitcoms, she uses apps that let her read magazines and news sources (hence the barrage of articles in the family group chat that none of us ever read), and she likes to look up recipes (and print them. And print them again. Not in a printer-friendly format either. Our house overflows with printer recipes tucked in amongst cookbooks). She likes to shop online too, something worsened when she was convinced the pandemic would render supply chains inoperable and prohibit her from purchasing jeans (I still have some of the useless skincare shit I purchased at this time when she all but made it mandatory for my sister and I to make some online purchases). But she doesn't use social media. She doesn't look at reddit threads for horse lovers or Golden Girls fans.

My dad is very different. He's on facebook all the time, but I've truly never met anyone in as many facebook groups as him. It's an entire hobby. He'll find the group, request to join, and google the answers to the questions, or just guess. He claims he hasn't gotten rejected yet. This middle aged male physician from Alberta is in a surprising variety of groups, to the point one of my husband's friends in an entirely different city, who maybe interacted with my dad once at our wedding, asked me a few months ago if it was my dad in one of his facebook groups. These two have almost nothing in common. My dad is also on instagram (where he posts almost nothing but dog photos) and twitter (which he mostly seems to use to follow politics, particularly regarding healthcare in this province). The downside of this is that he is often scrolling, scrolling, scrolling while in the same room as other family members trying to have a conversation with him. He sends me memes very often now (and the ones from his on-call nights are often funny only to him). I will often find him scrolling when he is home and my mom has gone to bed.

If I'm being fully honest, I'd rather emulate my mom's usage compared to my dad's. My dad may be enjoying himself, but he is in that rabbit hole more and more of the time. Perhaps because he only discovered these apps in his fifties, he is still capable of unplugging to read, but it's become more and more common that even that time is interrupted by scrolling. My mom is starting to complain about it. Sure, he often finds funny videos or great deals, but he's less and less present. My mom will at least put down her article about whatever clickbait topic to have a conversation with me. 

It's interesting to observe things more as an outsider now too. I can see how much time my husband spends getting sucked into these things. I can see how little my sister does, despite her insistence that it's bad for her, too. She and I have a similar love-hate relationship to these things. 

I don't think I want to go back at the end of the month.

The job I applied for yesterday is one I feel fairly confident about. I'm somewhat overqualified. But come July and August, it would have me working full-time, normal adult job hours (8:30-4:30, M-F). I've worked similar hours before and it really leaves you very little time for the rest of your life. I may also have to do experiments or thesis work during all this. That is to say: if I have time off, I'd rather be doing something I enjoy, particularly in the limited summer months. Reading. Writing. Visiting the family cabin. Swimming. Eating ice cream. Walking the dogs. Walking myself. Eating outside. Sitting outside listening to music on a warm summer evening. All of that is interrupted by social media. 

At the end of the day, I have been more productive with my time. I'm not devoting more time to work- or perhaps I am. But it's not significant (at least, it doesn't feel that way). When I say productive I mean: my rest is more restful. I'm doing more of the things I want to get done outside of work. I feel like I have more energy for social outings. I'm more interested in leaving the house. While I agree that "time wasting" activities can be productive, I don't think social media is one at this point. It is a true waste of time, energy, etc. I don't ever want to get bogged down in a shitty comment section ever again. I don't want to send nothing to my friends except memes. I don't want to get sucked down the rabbit hole of whatever algorithm. 

I do miss hearing about old friends and acquaintances. But is that worth the trade off? I would say I could check once in a while, but if I'm being honest, the stories feature really kills off that practicality. Most people just post stories, which disappear after 24 hours, requiring you to check every single day if you actually want updates. And isn't that convenient. That's how they get you, as I like to say in real life often when anyone refers to any frustratingly appealing feature of anything at all. Maybe it's not that odd that way though. I mean, really, how much would I know about these people in a pre- or sans-social media world? About as much as I'd know from checking the thing once a month. 

I want to keep the freedom. I want to keep the peace. I also want to attend my high school reunion, so I should check facebook once in a while. I also want to write my thesis and have a full time job this summer, so I need to keep distractions to a minimum. Actually, that's not totally accurate. Here is what I am roughly aiming to accomplish in the next five months:

- Spend 10 hours reviewing applications for a summer research program, by April 17
- Spend 20 hours over 2 days getting first aid certification
- Spend 30-40 hours grading probably close to 90 final exams (that 90 number is assuming that about 25% of the class drops out, and based on the midterm grades... it might not be that far off) (I'm not kidding, most of them failed) (yes, really, most of the grades were below 50%)
- Start training for and then work a full-time job (a third one, if you count my thesis work as a job)
- Spend ~4 hours a week at my current second job, which is 2 hours of cleaning, and 2 hours of digitizing old charts
- Schedule, prepare for, and have a committee meeting with a 5-person thesis committee
- Start writing my thesis in earnest
- More experiments (planning, execution, troubleshooting, potential re-dos although I really don't have the materials to support this, data analysis, data presentation, background reading, etc)
- Start writing 1-2 research papers (based on those experiments and ones already completed)
- Finish a mentorship program I have been in since October, with 4 more hours of meetings, one of which I may have to attend on a plane
- Last round of edits on a review paper on which I will be last author (this is a big deal in research, or at least it is in science research, I don't know about other fields. The last author spot is usually for the PI/prof in whose lab the work was done, but because I took on so much of the editing and mentoring, my supervisor (who already has dozens of publications on which she is the last author) said I could be last author).

And probably more I'm not thinking of. So like. I want to hold this in mind the next time I think it's totally reasonable to spend 3 hours scrolling tiktok on a saturday morning. 

We'll see what changes between now and April. I will be on a trip during that changeover, visiting my sister where she attends grad school on the coast, for art history. April is where shit gets busy. But these things also won't be done in overlap; some are flexible, some are time sensitive, some are only a day, some are only a couple hours a day. I'll be busy, but I'll still find time to play with the sims and start my cross-stitch kit and go camping. It's not like last summer when, during my comprehensive exam, I worked pretty much 50-60 hours a week on preparing for 6 straight weeks, and only took about 5 days off the whole time (one of which was the day of my written exam, so the morning wasn't even really "off"). But you know what the funny thing was about my comprehensive exam? I knew even then- and I forced myself to follow this wisdom- that scrolling on my phone was not going to feel restful or like a break for me. I took days off to do things like have my bachelorette party, help a friend move, attend a friend's baby shower, and just generally leave the house and not be on my computer. I didn't just sit in the basement all day (except the day after my bachelorette, when I was hungover and forgot to take synthroid). I Did Stuff. I also made myself take walks and make tea on my breaks, instead of just scrolling (though I wasn't perfect at that). 

Okay, I think this post is sufficiently bloated and poorly written. Time to hit publish!

The older I get

Yes, yes, I know. I'm 27, I'm still very young. The thing about that, though, is that aging as an adult is still sort of novel to me. Or maybe more the concept that I'm in charge of my own life. I wasn't granted a lot of independence as a kid, or at the least, I wasn't really encouraged to take it. I didn't have authoritarian parents, but I did have anxious ones. Getting past the age of 18 and spending some time living away from them began the journey of me realizing I actually get to decide things about myself. I can't decide if the little quirks I accept about myself are choice or acceptance (or perhaps both somehow).

This is brought on by the fact that I woke up with my husband this morning. We were supposed to hang out last night, but he was very tired, as per usual for him with all his mountain days and work as a nurse. Lying there on the couch with his head resting on me, I fell asleep for a bit too, until I forced us up to clean up our dinner dishes and pizza boxes and go to bed. It was something like 10:30 when I fell asleep last night- this is unusually early for me.

This morning, I was out of bed shortly after 6, and have been more or less awake since 5:30. Here's the first piece of acceptance I've found, which I don't really think is a choice: for about an hour or so after I first wake up, I am not really there. This is why I love the alarm clock we have that gradually brightens the room and then starts playing my choice of radio station (it's the CBC... don't judge). It makes the process a little bit easier and allows it to start without me getting out of bed. I'm not the type to spring out of bed as soon as I feel awake, there's a gray area where I like to hover for a little while to make the change more gradual. I like to get up only when I am at least 90% of the way to full cognitive function. 

The other piece is that I need at least 6 hours to function well. Any less, and I am just not myself. I feel this piece differs for many people. My husband seems to be able to cope with any number of hours, perhaps buoyed on by his ability to literally fall asleep anywhere (including once in a hotel lobby in Switzerland as he experienced jet lag for the first time). I'm also a bit picky about where I sleep, it needs to be a dark and cool room with a bed, but not so dark that I can't open my eyes and see (to the best of my myopic abilities) vaguely what is going on. I can't sleep on planes, I can't sleep in cars, I can't sleep on my desk. I can have a vaguely satisfying nap on a couch from time to time. Serious hits of caffeine from coffee only serve to make me feel as though someone has inserted a dishwashing brush into my colon and scrubbed it around (complete with the consequences of what actually doing that would bring). Synthroid even for a time destroyed my ability to have caffeinated tea. As it is, two cups of green tea bring heart palpitations that really freak me out, so I'm left with no choice but to get enough sleep.

I was just about prepared, before I sat down to write this, to accept a third truth: I can't get up before 7 am without feeling the desperate need to take a nap all day. I do also believe that people have different sleep schedules that work best for them, and that these change as we age: I have a friend who sleeps in (genuinely sleeps) until 11AM whenever she is given the choice, despite working a full time 9-5 job, and my parents regularly rise at 5AM without really having to try. I was sitting around all morning reading a book and eating my breakfast and drinking some (caffeinated) green tea, and as the morning wore on I found myself thinking more and more longingly of bed. I resisted this urge as I know for a fact that going back to bed after I have already decided to get up and start my day just makes me depressed. And then I got up to go to the bathroom.

Lo and behold. I am not so picky about my wake up time. The simple act of literally just moving around woke me up more than I can say. This clicks with previous adult experience- how I never fell asleep in 8AM labs in undergrad, how I would be sleepy after leaving my residence but feel refreshed and alert after a mere 20 minute walking commute to school, how even on sleepy camping mornings, I manage to feel all right as I am forced to move around to retrieve the stove from the car, find space on the table for it, and begin to cook breakfast. It's not the early morning that's the problem, it's the sitting. Of course, fucking once again everyone is right about exercise. GOD, that's so annoying.

I think it's good to question and criticize, or at least be willing to admit change in, those little ways of being we decide are how we are. Sometimes we are being too hard on ourselves, like when I finally looked at the evidence and figured I must be at least a decent graduate student, since nobody had told me I needed to hustle it up or get kicked out. Sometimes we are too generous- I realized the other day I'm perhaps a bit of an abrasive person, since someone who has now amassed 4 enemies is probably not just a sweet and nice and kind person 100% (nor do I think I'm just perpetually unlucky or a victim to have run into so many people who think I'm just the fucking worst). And perhaps I need to just admit, I am not necessarily a morning person per se- but a fucking walk would probably make that better.

The other thing that I have had to accept about myself? If I save a post to the drafts here, it won't ever get published. That's why I've just been hitting publish instantly on whatever inane post I've written in the past two weeks- I've only drafted (and subsequently deleted) two posts. So, here's to knowing ourselves.

Writing to you live from campus, post teaching workshop

 I think maybe I just don't like to write as much on Sundays.

I also think it occurred to me that the reason I've never really felt drawn to creating a science blog is because my passion was never science writing. It's always been creative writing. Creative writing is what gave me the tools to be a good writer in the first place, because I have spent so much time writing in my life. I don't think my lab reports, essays, and even my review paper would have been half as good had I not just enjoyed spending my time writing about things.

I actually just wrote out a whole post below this and was treating it like an assignment, or maybe a journal entry. In either case, it's not really the ethos of what I want to get into on this blog. The purpose of it is still evolving, but any time I type out and write a whole post about Some Opinion I Have I find myself getting into the weeds of something I got off social media for in the first place: defending myself. And honestly, don't I do enough of that at school? For fuck's sake, I have an exam that is LITERALLY referred to as a defense coming up sometime in the next year or so. Why do I want to come on here and justify my thoughts on why students cheat, or how we talk about controversial subjects, or whatever?

Of course it's not the SAME as arguing in a comment thread, which is subject to disappear if the post author tires of the comment notifications, has no bounds on when someone can reply, has poor structure for citing sources, and sometimes even has word limits. Not to mention the whole anonymous aspect that makes us all nasty (including me, which again, is part of why I got off social media in the first place). For starters, I seriously doubt anyone is reading this, which is a blessing and a curse, but for another thing, if they were to comment, I'm in control and can just delete it if I don't feel like engaging with it. I'm also never requesting people to comment, which probably hinders it. It's more that this is a safe space to write publicly. Anyone can access this blog in theory, but nobody is. I'm not promoting it and I'm not driving engagement or worrying about SEO. It's just sort of here. It's an acceptable risk.

But it's also just not really something I want to do. I love discussing and thinking about controversial topics, but maybe not here. Maybe not with strangers who have no motivation to give me the benefit of the doubt (since the social rules of politeness, civility, and not making a fucking scene don't apply). But with friends? Colleagues? Yeah, then it's fine- they have to treat me with civility, and I them. Those bounds on our actions are necessary.

This isn't even something I necessarily realized I cared about until today. I did think that by going off social media I'd get in fewer pointless arguments and spend less time in my day in that kind of activated angry state that feels so awful and so righteous all at the same time. But I wasn't thinking about oh, I actually have opinions on how disagreements should take place in society. Apparently I do. And I don't even want to get into it that much, because treating this like a personal reflection is the point.

The actual honest reason why I decided to blog here during my break was because I knew I'd need an outlet for my ideas and thoughts that I was sharing on social media before. Of course not like this, never like this, because it just isn't possible. Social media is just designed to be quick and digestible. It has the advantage of making it easier to find and manage an audience, but it doesn't really respond well to nuance or long thoughtful posts or videos. This is also why youtube is not something I consider "social media" though others may disagree- the point of youtube is to watch videos. That's it. People will post much longer form content on there that takes time and energy to create, and that time and energy weeds out people who just want to yell about things online for fun. I spend a lot of time on it, but it always kind of manages its own time.

That's the other thing about activities I'm choosing now. Even with books, I don't get lost in them forever. I do like when that happens with books, but it's just easier to put them down and come back later. It's hard to put down tiktok, let me tell you. Even the one video game we have in the house (not on the computer) that I enjoy is kind of self limited by the fact that I tend to die on a specific level all the time. I'm able to enjoy things without feeling like I have to stop doing them prematurely, and I think that adds to the level of overall satisfaction with my life. 

Another fringe benefit that interrupted this post writing: I think I'm more approachable. I just had a really nice conversation with another grad student from my lab when someone asked if he wanted to go to med school and he was like "hell no, I don't need more school" and I chimed in with "I'm with you" and it became a whole thing. The one thing I won't do is end a conversation early; this is a habit I've spoken about on here before, but a while ago, and is something I adopted in undergrad. I realized when I lived in residence that I hated ending dinner conversations early to go and "study" which usually meant scroll tumblr until I fell asleep. I liked talking to people, and I was lonely and in need of friends. One day I decided I'd never be the one to end the conversation unless I legitimately had something that needed doing. If someone said they had to go, I'd let them, and would accept the conversation's end. But I'd never do it myself. It led to some really long and interesting conversations, including one that lasted for I think 3 hours after a random lecture one time with a fellow student that I regarded as a bit of a stupid man. It was interesting to have my ideas challenged and pushed, to find common ground, and to get to know this person. We never really spoke again at length and he went on to say some truly stupid things in class, but it was still nice. It was an experience. It was a connection with someone. I think I even missed dinner at my residence for that one.

That's actually something I would encourage people to do- when you're having a good conversation, let it happen! Resist the pressure to stop because you "have to" do this or that thing. The reasons I'd end a conversation were pretty much limited to: having to go to the bathroom, being kicked of a particular area, having a class I had to get to, or having something that urgently needed doing right that minute. Or if the conversation wasn't enjoyable for both of us (so the stupid idiot man in my building who would argue with public health and nursing majors about public healthcare despite being a fucking business student was not someone I would chat with, because I only wanted to talk to people who had something worthwhile to say- but it did mean that I talked to the one very conservative man who heard me out in good faith about abortion and worked with me to find common ground). This meant that I would talk to people sometimes for hours. That didn't always lead to friendships, and I don't really talk to a lot of those people today, but it got me through those times. It helped me connect with others. It let me hear interesting ideas and experiences. It challenged me. It showed me flaws in my thinking. I learned about things I otherwise wouldn't have. 

Just today I learned from this other graduate student that I'm not the only one in the lab with a physician parent and that I'm not the only one who HATES lab work and thinks a post-doctoral fellowship is a bad idea. That stuff made me feel less alone, like my experience wasn't quite as niche as I thought. Honestly I think there are a lot of graduate students who come to really hate what they're doing but see it through anyways.

I'm also coming to a place where I don't want to go back on social media, perhaps ever. Maybe I'll just extend the time away, maybe I'll delete my accounts in a fury, I don't know. I just know that if I go back with the intention of "I just have to limit my use this time" it will just end up the same way. Something has to change. But things feel peaceful and quiet now in my mind and in my life. I feel less distracted. I like it.

Today was the first day I've felt the warmth of the sun in a while

 That sounds like it's meant to be poetic, but it's literal. I've been outside only a bit in the last two weeks, but enough to feel that it was still winter. Cold and clear. Yesterday we even had a snowstorm. And I shovelled and chipped away at the ice on the sidewalk. Today it melted in the sun as soon as I shovelled again. It was so warm I was out without any winter gear, no coat, no mitts, no toque, just a sweater. I could feel it. It was strong enough that it could give me a sunburn if I was out there long enough.

I used to really hate summer. I still hate the same parts of it. Mostly the bugs, but the heat was also unbearable. Cold weather meant- and still means- warm sweaters, rosy cheeks, my favourite holidays, and a small reminder for a little bit that global warming hadn't destroyed everything yet. Winter is quiet. Everything is muffled and soft. Summer is loud, bright, hot... and uncomplicated. Simple. Languid. Winter is when there is more of the nighttime, but summer is when I can actually enjoy it. 

Now I'm in the place everyone is in if they live somewhere with distinct seasons: you always catch yourself missing the next one in the midst of the one before. Come August- maybe even July- I'll be thinking wistfullly of hot chocolate and all the sounds snow makes under your boots, and what it's like to not be sweaty all the time. But right now I long to defrost. 

I've also been needing warm weather to come. I don't know how much more cold I can bear. And every time I catch myself in the midst of that longing I have to remind myself- summer is coming. It always comes. Faith isn't something I have a lot of experience with being raised as an atheist, and it's a quality I strive for now. It's nice when faith can be rewarded.

 

I also made snickerdoodles today. For all I love cinnamon sugar, you'd have thought I made them ages ago, that they were my favourite cookie. I feel like somehow everyone hates them, or thinks they're overrated, or just prefers chocolate chip instead. Snickerdoodles don't feel like a classic, and I have no idea why they are named that (a quick google search suggests perhaps nobody really does), and everyone seems to be in a lifelong love affair with chocolate. I didn't really realize I would like them so much. I think I ate about a third of the cookies I made today. 

 

I have to hang onto the little things. Not even synthroid will beat back the melancholia today. But hey, I don't want to kill myself. I'm just kind of sad right now. Lonely. It's not even that I'm pushing people away or whatever, I've had plans and seen people plenty as of late. It's that sometimes I feel stuck in PhD purgatory and things keep Happening To Me and to quote many a teenager, nobody understands. Fortunately most people assume doing a PhD means I'm very smart and respectable and hard working, which isn't true given some of the people I've met doing this program, and I think people really overestimate it in me because they feel bad. They've built PhD into this weird thing in their minds that it just isn't. It's hard to feel as brilliant as everyone seems to think you are when you're just failing all the time and that's the point of the degree you're getting. I'm not saying that to be dramatic, either, learning how to fail is an essential part of this degree. I've gotten lots of practice. It fucking sucks. It's demoralizing as hell, and despite getting help to graduate now, it's lonely. I don't know anybody in my real life who knows what graduate school is like anymore. And I don't know anybody in grad school that I like that much. Nobody has social skills, and again, I'm not being dramatic when I say that. There's a reason these people are in a lab. I don't fit in there. And worst of all, the schedule of it all seems to be completely lost on everyone else and I find myself explaining again, and again, and again why I can't do this or that, or why I have to go in at x and y time. What I have to do next. Why their loving suggestion won't work. Why I can't just drop everything and go skiing all the time because it worked one random Tuesday. Why it has to be this way. Nobody will accept it and sometimes it feels like nobody will learn what is actually going on either. And that isn't fair. I know everyone is trying to be supportive of me in this niche experience that I really did not think would be so isolating. I fucking moved home to do this. How am I this alone? How am I this unrelatable?

Anyway. I wanted to publish this yesterday, and I'm still gonna count it that way, but I guess it is officially tomorrow, and thanks to the stupid fucking time change, it's actually 1 AM right now. I guess I should act like it.

It's nice to feel inspired again

 It occurs to me only now that it was kind of inevitable that I would take up writing when I spent all my time reading as a kid, from the very first moment I was able to do it. I don't remember what it was like to not be able to read, but I'm sure that when I figured it out, the whole entire world opened up to me, and for a long time I sprinted around in it gleefully. I'd read a whole book in the bookstore without even buying it, or on the car ride home from the bookstore (why my parents didn't just take me to the fucking library remains a mystery). Books were something I was allowed to covet and want endlessly. My parents would, and did, buy me any book I wanted. In retrospect, again, a healthy relationship with a library card would probably have been a better habit to foster, but there are worse things to encourage in a child. I've learned the library card love now as an adult. 

I've told the same story on here for years. To everyone in my life. I used to write- I would write prolifically. I'd write on the edges of my school notes and on the backs of scrap paper. Notebooks would all be filled with various stories, so many left uncompleted, which never bothered me. I still have endless, endless word documents of stories that fizzled out, that I would sometimes return to and add a few more sentences. This is my third blog, and I have a fourth. I mean, fuck, in elementary school I wrote a series of stories about the same female protagonist and they were legitimately so popular that I'd eagerly read them aloud to a captive audience of my classmates, who gasped and laughed and loved every word. Some people even copied my plot ideas for their own protagonists. Through high school, until the 12th grade, I still wrote prolifically, until November of 2012. I had a lot going on and when I cried to my parents about how stressed I was, they encouraged me to focus on school and piano lessons and put writing aside for now.

I still don't feel like I've ever really picked it back up. It's not like I was discouraged, but I was told, and I believed, that writing would never net me a good career, that it wasn't something to focus on, and I felt that my interest in it was silly and frivolous and after so much assault on it, being told to just give it up for now felt like the logical solution. Except it wasn't just for now. It's been a decade now. Over a decade. 

It's not even that nobody ever told me I couldn't have hobbies that clashed with what I studied or pursued professionally or academically. But I still picked that up somewhere. I didn't even question it until 2015- so short a time from when I gave up what I loved- when my now-husband asked what I liked to do for fun. Shit I thought, somehow unaware that I wanted to impress him, wanted him to like me. What the fuck DO I do for fun? I didn't know how to answer the question. I can't even remember what I told him, and I can't ask him at the moment- he's out doing his hobby, the one he has protected and upheld and fought for every step of the way. I think I met him shortly after he had what he calls a "watershed moment" with that hobby, when he realized just how far he wanted to take it and all that was open to him. He was able to answer the question. I was not.

What did I do for fun, back then? Well, I was online (you thought this was going to be a break from the social media thoughts, didn't you? Sorry). I read things. I liked to read books, when I had the time. That habit had been falling out of favour ever since I got a facebook account in the 11th grade. Back then, facebook was the after-school hangout spot for my nerdy friends and I. We'd have comment chains that went forever that always had me laughing uproariously. I was happy to be included after I'd been left out for so long, both from my parents forbidding me to have an account until I was sufficiently old enough and from my disinterest in it until I realized all my friends were talking about the fun they had on there the next day at school. After high school, it became incredibly boring, and the corporate takeover began. Most of what I see when I scroll now is from pages, communities, memes and short videos from people I don't know. This is despite my best efforts to only look at shit from actual people I know. Actual life updates I enjoy getting and hearing about. But since facebook wasn't where we connected anymore, I turned to other sites. I think that was around the time I made a tumblr account.

In retrospect, I'm sure I would have enjoyed tumblr enormously had I been on it sooner. I finally found a plethora of content I enjoyed engaging with, and I had some control over it. I was on instagram too, at this time, but that was literally when it was just pictures of people I knew. I had snapchat, but again, that was just to send pictures to people I knew. Tumblr was anonymous. I was anonymous, to a degree- I followed real-life friends on there for a long time. Many have since deleted their blogs. It was a space for being young and stupid, not a space for serious grownups (of course I know this isn't the case now, but in general I've found that the people I know who are more busy cultivating adult lives are less active online). It was also a space to engage in social activism, primarily feminism. When I took a women's studies course a year later, much of the terminology was already familiar to me. The method of analysis, of reading, was not. It's taken me fucking forever to grasp that as a student of the sciences. 

And that was what I did, for the most part. I'd come home from campus, and I'd put off doing homework until dinner, and in that time I'd be online. Some of that was here, blogging, some of that was on tumblr, blogging and re-blogging, and some was on other apps. I'd switch between the same few constantly. I had my brief thing with twitter. I mean, I was involved in a satellite club (with dwindling interest as I realized I knew nothing about, nor had any interest in, computer science, coding, physics, astrophysics, etc. I dropped that club the same semester I attended exactly one lecture of astrophysics before dropping it). But I didn't really do much else. 

I was surprised at the amount of shame I felt, and I feel like I've been trying to answer that question for years. My now-husband wasn't intending to shame me. He was interested in me, and wanted to get to know me better, and what better a question? He got to know me anyway. To this day he maintains he finds it sad (in a pity sort of way) when someone can't answer that question. You don't know what you do for fun? How can a person live a happy life with that lack of self awareness? To be fair to myself, and to others, I think adolescence and its themes of self-discovery really extend until age 25 or so (if not our entire lives- but it's most difficult when we start out our entire adult lives), and we were 19 when we had this conversation. Still teenagers. I don't hate myself for not having an answer. But I wanted to have one. 

Over the years I've approached this many different ways. Some of it was by insisting that I had to try new things and find the ones I liked. For a long while I was into swing dancing, which I picked up very quickly thanks to a dance background. That led to friends and community (all lost to me now, of course). I started a creative writing club on campus. I was surprised one didn't already exist. It still exists now. They've published anthologies. But I felt like a fraud the entire time, standing there as a final year genetics major, not even in any humanities classes at all. It was easy for me to feel like a fraud back then, though, because I was the most depressed I've ever been, and I wasn't even writing creatively. Perhaps it was because some of our meetings had only two members show up. We barely met the qualifications to be a club. Starting something is always hard. But still I tried other things. They never stuck. 

Then I lost three friends in one fell swoop. Canada day weekend, 2021. A thoughtless drunken conversation, initiated by me, which spiralled into something much larger and uglier. Betrayal. Dogpiling. Bullying. Gaslighting. Trauma. Thinking about it still makes my heart ache and beat fast in a fearful, anxiety ridden sort of way. I won't pretend I didn't have my hand in that crisis or that I didn't behave distastefully, but I wasn't the only one, though of course nobody would say that except for me. Nobody would admit it. 

In the aftermath of all that, I lost a group chat. That sounds so fucking... modern. Pathetic. A group chat? Jesus christ. But they all lived in the same city, and I didn't, and that chat was my only connection with them save for our annual girls' weekends. I put a lot of time and energy into that chat. So did they. It was good. It was a sounding board. It was a place of community and connection. It consumed a lot more of my time than I realized. And its absence consumed a lot more of my energy than I liked. I needed a distraction, but social media was not cutting it. I didn't want to talk about what happened with my other friends, convinced they wouldn't really take my side or want to hear me rant about sordid details. I was so afraid of losing them, too. So I picked up a book. And another. And another. Suddenly my goal of reading 20 books that year blew past, and I ended up reading 34. Books were an escape, a comfort, a coping mechanism. It felt like coming home to something. A year and a half later, and I've read more books in 2021 and 2022 than I think I read in the entire previous 8 years combined. A habit. A hobby. Something I do for fun. 

Right before this rift happened, I had also taken up crochet on impulse. I was in the yarn aisle. I saw a pattern on a ball of yarn that I liked. My sister convinced me I should just go for it. I bought a hook and all the required yarn in one trip, and then got home and realized I had better fucking figure out how to make that blanket. Two months later, it was done. I still use it to cuddle up with when I read on the couch. But making it was therapeutic. I felt like I was working through my pain with every stitch. Then I thought, wait. I want this blanket to be a source of comfort. I shouldn't think about this while I'm stitching it. I didn't want to stitch the trauma into it, making it a cursed object of pain. Now I think of it as a beacon of strength. I kept going. I finished something. I comforted myself. I held myself for months before I really asked for help. That blanket is stitched with healing. A new hobby. Something I do for fun.

But as it is now, I haven't crocheted anything in several months. I crocheted more during my comprehensive exam, trying desperately to finish a baby blanket for a friend (which of course I stitched with only loving and kind and warm hearted thoughts, sealed off by a final hug of that blanket before I gifted it). And yet I would still say that's a hobby of mine. Something I do for fun. I'll go months without reading anything, then tear through three books in a weekend. And one day my husband says "I'm really impressed by your commitment to journaling." Which is, to me, an absurd statement. Commitment? That's for serious things that are hard to do, like working out or flossing my teeth before bed. I've never committed to journaling, and lord knows I haven't been consistent with it, either. But as I've written here before. I've still kept a journal of some kind since I was about 8 years old and knew how to write and had been introduced to the concept. Journaling is just something I do. It's like breathing. It's like appreciating the warmth of a summer day or enjoying a good thunderstorm or liking to wear sweaters in the winter. I don't commit to any of those. I committed to my husband, to flossing my teeth, to my values and beliefs, to therapy and all the work that came with it. Those things were sometimes easier than others, but they still took work and compromise. Journaling isn't work for me. Ergo, I can't commit to it.

The way he said it has really shaken me, once again (I think this is why I keep him around. He broadens the world for me). In a good way. In a thoughtful way. What does it mean to commit to something? What does it mean to commit to something enough that you can say you do it for fun? Does it mean doing it all the time? It can't, because I'm clearly committed to journaling on some level, but I've never once been consistent with it, and every time I try to be, I fail. It's just a coping mechanism, a thing I do sometimes, a thing I like to do. But then doesn't that mean reading has always been something I do for fun? What about crochet? Or cross stitch? Do I need to do them forever to have them be something I do for fun? Maybe not. Maybe sometimes I'm too busy or doing too much pipetting to engage in that kind of arm work on my down time. Maybe sometimes they just aren't what I want to do. But they can still be things I do for fun.

What about writing?

I've felt so hesitant to claim that identity because I really feel like I gave it up ten years ago. I quit. I didn't write anymore. I had other things to do and no time. But that's never been true. I've always had time for things. And it isn't true that I haven't written at all in that time. I've done it creatively at least once a year, because I've been having a crisis about it the entire time. In doing so, I've given more space to other things that feel far less vital to who I am as a person and who I have been the entire time. I let those things be part of my identity. Crochet-er. Cross stitch-er. Journal-er. Reader. But never writer. It's like it's too important to take lightly, but those other things are more trivial (even though one of them literally IS writing). The standards I hold for myself to be a writer are that I have to go back to how I was before November 2012. Nobody else is holding me to this. Nobody else is holding themselves to this; plenty of people call themselves writers who probably write less than I do. Maybe part of it is that it's an actual profession I don't belong to, just like I've wondered whether I can call myself a scientist. 

As I write this now and reflect on it, I think it's just perfectionism again. Anything that is important to me has standards attached that are truly terrifying. All set by me, for myself, for no one else. Writing is something that is more important to me than anything else. While other things might tower high on precipitous cliffs I've constructed of what I need to do to measure up, "Being a writer" is higher than anything else. Higher maybe than everything else, combined. I'm not sure, ironically, that I can even express in words how important this feels to me. It's like a limb. It's like a child. It's like so many things. A piece of my soul. Some indelible piece of me, as a person who has an identity. But jesus FUCKING christ, do I really deserve that?

Does any of this matter THAT much? Is it really THAT serious? And furthermore, if this is really that important to me, if it IS really that serious, how the fuck is this helping? Wouldn't it be better to be a bad writer, a lazy writer, a writer with a decades long case of writer's block, a writer who isn't as prolific as she used to be, than not a writer? Someone who writes? What the fuck do I think I am doing right this very goddamn second?

I'm writing. I'm a writer. The words have always been there. 

I don't know that I can call things like this a "relapse"

 Yesterday I found my way onto the world of youtube shorts. It was like a less algorithmically optimized version of tiktok. I only spent like maybe 20-30 minutes scrolling, but afterwards I was filled with unease. All day I had been reaching for my phone, and I felt something like an itch that couldn't be scratched. I just wanted to look at some videos for 5 fucking minutes. But the apps weren't there. I tried other things. I watched TV. I played a video game (on a real console and everything, so not just sitting at my desk... not that choosing to play video games in front of a TV is a healthier choice per se, but at least I changed locations). Nothing was working. Out of curiosity, I clicked on youtube shorts. I can't overstate the relief I felt. It's still palpable.

I don't really like that there was that sense of yearning and release associated with this. I'm not even going to try and claim that I know what addiction is like, but if I had to guess, it would be something like that except 10,000X more powerful and life destroying. I think a better word for it is habituation. My brain was wired to get dopamine from this source and when it was deprived, it searched desperately for anything. Youtube shorts was just close enough to provide that release. This sounds so fucking dramatic, oh my god, it was seriously 20 minutes of a social media challenge. I promise I am not taking it THAT seriously (it's never been that serious). I also realized later yesterday that I forgot to take synthroid in the morning, which explains why I was so FUCKING depressed last night and had so much trouble focusing yesterday. (And yes, I know the half life of synthroid is long and it shouldn't technically work that way, but it does, at least for me).

BUT. But. The idea that my brain has changed its wiring to get a reward from this kind of media consumption such that I can feel when it's lacking? THAT is troubling to me. I would never have described myself as someone who was truly troubled by my habits around these apps; I still got my work done in a (mostly) timely fashion and was always able to put it down when someone was talking to me. I could focus on work for 30-60 minutes at a time, routinely, with a little bit of concerted effort. I was keeping up with my studies and maintaining a normal sleep schedule. It was just that every other bit of time was consumed by the apps. I suspect this is at least partly because this app came out when my brain was already mostly developed, or at least out of adolescence. 

This is bringing me back to the reasons why I decided to do this in the first place. If I was still maintaining a successful life and generally enjoying myself, why stop? Well... I just got the feeling after a while that this was usurping my whole life. I've said before in these entries that the intent was never to stop wasting time, since I'll always do that, but to waste it in more interesting ways. To let my brain be bored. To force it to get used to just doing things instead of scrolling for sometimes an HOUR in my car before I go in somewhere (god I cannot tell you how much I hate that I do that). To maybe free up a little time in my day to get the dishes done, take the garbage out, cook some real food, actually watch movies and TV I like, or read more, work on crafts, or play games. I stopped doing a lot of these things because social media and short form content was just an easier dopamine hit. 

When I think about what I want my life to look like and the things I want to do with my time, the idea that I spent all my free time watching other people do things or talk about things in 15 second-3 minute increments online is not exactly what I want. I've never been the type of person to strive for glory, fame, etc, I've always just wanted a simple, enjoyable, sustainable life. To work enough to live, to enjoy vacation time, to learn new things, see people I love and spend time with them, to enjoy good food, etc. Just generally to enjoy my life on earth. Not to spend it sitting in front of a screen (she says, sitting in front of a screen). Even just doing this feels better in some deeper, more enriching way. At least I'm producing something. Honing a skill or something. Using different neural connections. Rubbing my neurons together in a DIFFERENT way... because as I learned during my comprehensive exam (and kind of already knew), we don't get any new brain cells. You actually just get fewer as you age. BUT the brain remains plastic. I can't have a fulfilling life full of interesting things if I'm always on that damn phone.

Maybe I can think of it as some kind of harm reduction-equivalent (again. I don't think this is the same as a real addiction. But I don't have other language for it yet). The urge is a lot less today, which is nice, although it's probably at least partly because of the fact that I took my fucking medication this morning and my brain and body has energy to like, do stuff again. Not that I'm really doing stuff. I played video games this morning after having to get up early to let the dogs out, and honestly, it was kind of nice to use that early morning time for something fun and engaging (when the game glitched I had a natural end point). I'd go for a walk but GOD is it cold outside and I just don't want to deal. I miss the summer so bad. I had a dream about it the other night. And I NEVER thought I'd be the kind of person to say that. I mean, I don't miss the bugs, I don't miss that time we had a heat dome (you ever wonder what it's like to be inside an oven? I don't have to wonder since summer 2021), but I miss sitting outside on a warm summer evening, I miss being in fresh water when it's hot out (I think my goal this summer is to sit in more creeks, streams, and rivers) (anyone who knows me IRL will know how much I talk about this incessantly), I miss not having to wear a goddamn jacket and mitts and a toque and scarf everywhere (despite owning a grand total of two pairs of shorts, neither of which fit very well). I miss rainstorms. I could go on. I am just stuck in the loop of missing summer now. But you know, come August, I will be writing about how I miss winter.

There IS a lot to love. Okay, let's see if I can make this work. ummm... I do love the dark. I miss the dark when it's gone. Summer is so light all the time, there's not a lot of good quality darkness to enjoy. I love the way snow looks. I love how quiet it is. I love reading in front of the fire, and lord knows I have more than enough cozy sweaters. It's easier to go to the lab because I have to wear pants and closed toed shoes in there anyway. I love a good stew, a good soup, a good roasted vegetable. And on occasion, I'll even enjoy skiing (in either form, apparently. Suddenly I remembered how to downhill ski. Third time's the charm, I guess, even if it's the third time in 6 years). And skating. I never do enough of it. It's the winter equivalent of swimming, for me. I really am all about bodies of water in any season. I love me a good stream. A quality lake. Any time of year.

I think I might be dehydrated, actually.

Day 7 (and 8): the head cold

Okay. So. I had like, a third of a post typed yesterday and then my schedule kind of all went to shit. I had a fever and chills, not much of an appetite (though I did make sure to eat), and just kind of felt malaise-y all day. I also discovered that phenylephrine hydrochloride, the new decongestant added to cold and flu meds that replaced pseudoephedrine, gives me wicked heart palpitations (pseudoephedrine doesn't, although from what I can find online that shouldn't be the case, so idk). So I didn't even want to take that much cold and flu medication. (Yes, I know I can get some behind the counter).

The good news I received today is that some work I had to do in the lab has been done by someone else. So me not going in to start cells yesterday and not being able to do it Monday was really for the best. My current work mostly involves me bugging my supervisor about some other data we need... and all this points to me likely being able to start writing my thesis in earnest sometime this summer or fall. As much as I've been looking forward to that... I am also kind of terrified. I have no idea how to write a thesis. But I do like writing, and I did enjoy my comprehensive exam, so I should probably be able to make it work. Anything to get out of the fucking lab (I cannot overstate how much I hate lab work). 

So, yay... I get to stay home. Finally. And my husband is out Mountain-ing today, so he won't be around to distract me like he was yesterday. And suddenly... oh dear. Not much going on... need to entertain myself... here we go again.

The thing is, at this point I realize that when I find an activity I want to do that is a bit more long-term in nature: writing one of these posts, watching a TV show or movie, playing a video game, hanging out with my husband, taking a nap... I'm not as drawn to social media. It's all those moments in between. When I have to pee. When I'm waiting for the kettle to boil. When I'm waiting for a machine to finish analyzing something at the lab. When I'm waiting for my cell culture media to warm up (in the lab). When I'm waiting for my computer to update. When I don't want to go do the next thing I know I have to do. That's when I miss it most. The rest of the time, it's fine.

Of course if I could actually just use it in those moments, it would be fine. But the problem I realize now is that it was never just those moments. Five minutes in the car becomes 20. A 30 second pee now takes ten minutes. My husband and I will agree to go to lunch when we sleep in on the weekends and end up spending an hour getting stuck in social media loops. I'll wake up at 8:15AM, but then stay in bed scrolling until 10:30. I meant to take a five minute break from work... and now it's 3 hours later. You get the gist. The way these apps are set up is not to allow you those little breaks in the day but to suck you in for as long as humanly possible, and they do not and never will include barriers or blocks that are not easily overcome. Even the stuff available on phones that allows you to limit screen time is all too easily ignored or overcome (or the blocking app deleted). Right now I'm all too aware that I'd have to go to the app store, download the apps, and sign in, and I could use them again. But that's like, three steps, which is significantly more inconvenient than just not doing anything. There's also something about not using them at all which makes it easier to keep doing it than trying to use them in 5 minute increments. It's like behavioural inertia. It's hard to stop once you start.

Something I did notice yesterday was that like... despite not knowing what friendly acquaintances are up to, my life is relatively unchanged. When I think back on it, the people that I'm closest to really posted the least. I got slightly more baby updates from my one friend with a 6 month old, but that's about it. Most of what I did on instagram was really just sending memes and reels to my husband, my sister, two friends in town, and one friend out of town that I've known since high school. Yesterday, I read a news story about widowed geese (complete with pictures of a despondent goose, which caused me to feel an emotion I cannot name) and my first impulse was to share it to my instagram story. When I realized I couldn't do that... I sent it to my family (husband, my parents, and my sister), the two friends in town, and the one friend out of town. And I did not need instagram to do it. 

Today, I realized that I have been seeing a LOT less advertising, whether directly or indirectly. Obviously I'm not seeing ads or influencers anymore, but I'm also not like, getting jealous of clothes from watching hauls, or someone talking about how something they got didn't fit, or even just watching someone else evaluate and downsize their wardrobe. I'm no longer subject to the constant feed of other people's tastefully curated modern homes. I know I talked about this before, but I guess it hits every couple of days. Today I just noticed that there was an absence of pressure to buy things. Back then I noticed more that I was jealous or wanting. And that part is nice too, not playing the comparison game. I notice a little more that I'm no longer looking at my face or my outfits and being like oh god how does THIS look to an outsider. There's less comparison. I mean, I still want to change things, don't get me wrong, but it's less in my face all the time. Do I want to clean up my office desk and make it aesthetically pleasing? Sure, but now that other images of clean and aesthetic looking office desks aren't in my face all the time, the feeling is different. More creative, less comparative.

Another thing I miss that I find is hard to replicate elsewhere is the sort of exposure to different ideas I got. I know everyone talks about social media being an echo chamber, and I think that's true, but I don't know where else I would have run into the concept of "bare minimum mondays" if not for it being shown to me on tiktok. I like that concept a lot. Is it maybe something I could have come up with myself? Sure, I guess. I've come up with lots of little ways to live my life that make it easier while also discarding useless social rules I didn't even realize I had picked up. The best example of this I have is when I started leaving for school an hour earlier than when I needed to be there, which was more of a mindset shift than anything that has significantly decreased my lateness. Calculating how long it would take me to get there so as to arrive perfectly on time was just not working for me, because I never leave when I say I'm going to, and I always forget to consider something. Ergo: just overshoot it. The concept of "just take it easy on monday" may well have occurred to me long ago. 

But there being good on social media was never really for granted. It does let us stay connected with people far away without the need for one-on-one emails or phone calls. It does sometimes show us really interesting and unique information. I've made recipes off social media that turned into favourites, I've used crochet techniques I found on there RANDOMLY (i.e. without purposefully searching for them) on gifts I've given others, and I've found really insightful and thoughtful posts from others that allowed me to re-evaluate my life philosophy and values. I think the question I have to answer now is: is all that good stuff worth the bad shit? I know I spent more time getting angry on there and getting increasingly frustrated with various aspects of it (repetitive language, general and broad worldviews, and the inane nature of some of the songs) than I ever did finding new information. Also like... humanity has been around for a long time and people that wanted to find new insights have always managed to find them. The fact that I have to pivot isn't necessarily bad.

I'm at the point where I seriously wonder if any of this is actually unique even to me anymore as I write it. But I think this kind of format is really helping me tame the impulse to log back on. If I can put it here instead of on an instagram story, then I'm staying off, which is my goal for the month.

The other part though is that like... I think I was looking for an excuse to do this. I realized that with something else earlier this year: alcohol. Canada released some new guidelines about how many drinks is safe based on research, and they finally just said honestly, it's a carcinogen, and none is the best amount. One article I read had a girl saying "well, everything gives you cancer these days. That doesn't seem like a good enough reason to avoid it to me." I have always, always been the one saying "yeah, everything gives you cancer, so do what you want" to most things, but I didn't have that instinct this time. It made me realize I kind of wanted to be able to use the guidelines as a reason not to drink. I have several recent (i.e. within the last two years) memories where me being drunk significantly decreased the quality of an event. So I decided to be sober for 2023. Just to see what it is like. And like that whole journey with alcohol, I think I was finally just curious enough about social media abstinence to bother to try it. It's just like... hey, I notice this thing is having an impact on my life that I don't like. I can't seem to moderate it the way I want to. What would happen if I just abstained for a while?

All that to say that doing this feels like an inevitable next step in my journey of realizing in my mid-to-late 20s that I actually can do whatever I want with my life and it's not just some prescribed path like I believed until I was like, 23. 

There's also a certain je ne sais quoi to this that I can't quite describe. Things are different now in a way that hasn't occurred to me. The tone of my life has changed in just a week. Maybe if I keep writing, I'll find a way to put it into words.