Delete App

 I have removed all social media from my phone.  Even the clock app, which has been my constant companion while I walk to the mailbox each day.  With everything going on in the world, social media went from being fun to being a source of massive depression and making me extremely cranky at the world.  It has been hard because one of the first things I do in the mornings is scroll through my memories on the book of faces.  I love seeing videos and pictures of the kids, seeing random conversations that I've written down between myself, my wife and the kids.  I have been on the book of faces for around 17 years, which I consider several lifetimes ago.  Different eras for those Swifties out there.  It's an insight into the person I used to be.  

I can still go on there and look at stuff, but my phone has been a time sink and not good for my mental health.  I'm trying to make a concious effort not to be on it.  I have been able to put it down in spurts, but those spurts need to be longer and consistent.  I need to get healthier - not just mentally, but physically as well.  SO, off they went.  Last night I deleted the last vestiges of any social media app on my phone.  

I talked with Kacy about it both before and after.  She thought it was a good idea and she had actually done that several weeks ago.  This past week I took a "break" from social media, burying the apps in my phone where I had to actually search for them if I wanted to use them.  It was a soft step towards deleting, where I could scroll if I'm in line at the store, sitting on the toilet, etc.  But it was turning into where I wouldn't even have to search for them anymore, they'd be not on the home screen, but on the main screen after all the larger icons.  It was becoming too easy and my heart and brain, especially with all the news that is going on in this country right now, was causing my anxiety to spike severely.  In fact, I'm sure in my anger and posting things like "FDJT" I am more than likely on some government watch list.  That, however, is a discussion for another blog.  

Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that I am a person who likes to be in control of herself and her surroundings and lately, I have not felt very in control.  Well, more than lately.  Since my Dad passed, I have been rudderless.  I didn't know what to do with myself.  Correction - I knew what I should be doing, I just didn't want to do it.  And honestly, I'm not sure that I still want to do it.  Do I love doing real estate? Absolutely!  That is a 100%, emphatic yes!  I love helping people find their dream homes, figuring out how to achieve their real estate goals, etc.  Have I had the headspace to actually be good at what I do?  No, I have not.  I find it absolutely unfair to my clients if I cannot give them my absolute undivided attention.  Especially because I'm incredibly picky with who I work with.  If you and I don't mesh, we aren't working together and I'll recommend someone better suited for you.  It's as easy as that.  BUT also, I feel like I have to be very creative in my line of work.  Marketing, while it is readily available, is something that is very personal to me.  I don't go for the cookie cutter posts that most agents use.  I don't go for the templates that most agents go for.  I want my own things to reflect my personal self.  Heck, I'm currently in the process of building my own D&D campaign to teach people about the home buying process!  I want things to be personal.  And if I don't have the mental capacity to create, I really don't feel like myself.  

Can I fake it with the best of them?  Absolutely.  Unfortunately, I also have the ability to be as easy to read as one of those "See Spot Run" little golden books.  I will be able to turn that mask on for a few minutes at a time, but as soon as the mask comes off it's instantly "Jess, are you okay?"  No, I'm not.  I haven't been okay for a while.  BUT, I'm hoping that this is the start of me getting better.  

Last week I started writing again.  This is something that I used to love doing.  I would write short stories, distribute them to my friends, get laughed at for my ridiculousness, not care and continue writing.  I would write the most absurd things along the lines of self-inserted fan fiction.  Think Star Trek meets Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  I've posted one of the stories written by me and my friends on my blog previously (go look for The Book of Yesac).  They had a bit of a Douglas Adams flair, too (one of my all time favorite authors).  Throughout my adult life I have written snippets of dialogue, worked on scripts with my wife, had ideas for stories that I would never follow through with; they would just stay muddled in my brain, swirling around in a black hole of sorts or wherever those ideas go once they're thought up.  This past week, however, I started building out this world and outlining a story.  I now have roughly 50 pages of world building and an outline of an entire story that I've been writing on for an entire week and it just keeps flowing.  While the damn hasn't completely broken, I do have to keep a notebook with me at all times in order to write stuff down when it comes to me.  The best part?  It has been fun.  I have been "chasing the whimsy" which is something I told the wife I wanted to do this year.  I've been depressed, busy taking care of my Dad and then mourning him, lamenting the fact that we didn't get our one last big adventure together (we were trying to decide what ridiculousness we could get up to when he passed), and I really haven't been myself.  So, I'm trying to get back to it.  I'm trying to get back to myself.  

I know that I can never be the person I was.  I have always known that human nature is to evolve, change and grow.  If you're not doing that, you get stuck in your ways and that can be a very depressing place to be.  You also can't let yourself get stuck in the swamp of sadness because if you go down that road, you just eventually give up.  You gotta push yourself forward.  I haven't really wanted to push myself forward until last week when I started writing.  It was like this world that I was building and fleshing out was propelling me forward.  It was something I needed and didn't realize it.  

This country has gone to hell.  It's an absolute shit show that I have absolutely no control over and I don't really want to be a part of, but I don't much have a choice.  SO, I'm concentrating on something I do have control over - myself and the world I'm building on paper.  I may not live in the world that I want, but I can create, at least on paper, the world that I wouldn't mind exisiting in.  I'm going to enjoy myself doing it, too.  It's the first time I've really been excited about something in a long time and I can't wait to share it.