Discipline and Disappearance

What if you changed your phone number? But then none of the apps would connect and you would have to reset everything. It’s too much work on top of the work you already aren’t getting done. What if you blocked the two people who reach out left? What’s the point of that when it is your own self-control that you must manage?

What if you dedicated every day for the next year to a totally different way of life? What if the next time someone texts you, you respond by asking for their address and send your response written on stationery you designed at night, alone in the depths of your mind?

On this birthday you get to start over. Your mother’s influence is shed off, the force of public acknowledgment. Always knowing the discomfort that no one wanted to be there. Not feeling the pressure to go out and say “look at me still here and doing well.”

The weather usually holds me inside anyways, bringing in the gloom to help assure me of the validation of my mood. Years spent acting, years spent avoiding, years spent sobbing. This year, rebirth.

Much like when I formed a new intention around how I acknowledged New Year’s Eve, to soothe yourself, wash your hair, wear your pretty comfortable clothes, paint your nails, read a book, soak in the tub, journal, be with yourself, be with your cat. Think about days that have passed and days ahead, what to shed and how to proceed forward closer to who you want to be.

What if in fact you didn’t talk to anyone outside of a mentor, school curriculum, and professional contexts? What if instead of having those conversations out there, you just came here and wrote them all out?

What if you break down those big goals into smaller chunks you can actually begin?

What if every time you start to feel lonely, lost, or frozen, you just do something small to actively change yourself, your space, and your reality?

What if you delete social media that does little more than shorten your attention span? You have already dwindled it down to nothing and nothing meaningful can develop from it.

Please hold… deleting. Deleted. Now every time you would have scrolled, you can solve one of the many tasks that need resolving.

There are essays that need writing, interviews recorded, meetings scheduled, finances situated, projects finished, projects started, books to read, clothes to mend, braids to learn for my own head, conversations with the dead.

Make a list. Make a list and allow it to slowly release all dread.

Show them all what you create when they leave you for the swallow. It’s okay, you feel you wasted time. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. Would it matter at all? No. It clearly doesn’t. This is where you are. This is what you are working with. Now where are you going?

Maybe today feels like a failure because you didn’t write this two days ago when you started drafting it in your head. Who cares.

So what if you are internally fighting with yourself about whether to print this or post this.

It’s time to make a list. It’s time to restore the discipline of busying yourself on worthwhile tasks. Shed all distractions, even your emotions. Fuel your writing. Fuel your life. Reemerge a new version, long forgotten by those who knew the old.

Move past showing any of them your transformation.

How many times a day will you reach to scroll? How many days until that muscle memory urge alleviates?

Maybe at some point you will write about the toxic friendship that created this pattern to begin with.

Maybe this will cut ties with the people who say they want to be there for you but really either want to be you, be with you, sabotage you, or some combination of all three.

Maybe he was right. Maybe you do need a hug, but from who? Isn’t that the entire point?

You are alone because others have not and refuse to rise to your level. How can self-treatment aid with that?

So here we are again, another period of extreme isolation. Maybe this will be the transition that finally wipes anything from New England clear out of my field.

They did not reach out on your birthday, and that’s the final mark. Since they did not even respond to your last texts, just block them now. Go ahead. We will hold again.

Okay. I am back.

Those two friends have let me know where things stand, so I am able to create peace in myself and move along.