Offline
a prose poem for TGIFMFriday
What does it take to be offline?
This week, my emails were not syncing. I left my bed and tried to separate from my phone more than my computer. My computer plays a 2005 telenovela about a woman who, by day, is beautiful and, by night, turns back to herself. I keep it on to fill the noise in my apartment alone.
Every morning, instead of opening up a doomscroll, I’ve been bird shazaming the second I wake up. I feel a magnet-like pull attempting to pull my devices off, and I can’t.
I think about how much work I need to do, the shows I need to see, the things I need to catch up on, and I feel overwhelmed because the last few weeks haven’t been so good for me. My health is not at its best since my surgery, and I’ve been pushing myself to get out of bed and create.
I’m offline, but I can’t really go outside because the costs are rising, and I’m feeling the weight like sand in my pockets. The heavier the more I walk forward, easier hung up on my tote in my hook.
Off the line isn’t the same as being off the hook when no jobs call back, and I get stacked a deck of cards that tell me to keep waiting, but the rent waits for no one.
Years of experience teach me the ways to research, do I go into a deep dive, or instead go off the deep end, wondering how to simply survive and still show up on a Friday.
I feel for my creativity rather than feeling creative.
Imposter syndrome isn’t looming enough to push me, and so there, silently, being offline becomes in line with being on the line with the horizon line. Sunsets and sunrises feel linear, not discontinuous, and my calendar is the only thing to let me know I’m on time.
Chronologically, I’m being asked to learn and grow, but I’m doing that already
Going offline becomes amnesia, where I forget so much, already dealing with body aches and mental strains.
I’m not online enough. I tell myself to do another search, apply to one more thing, look at one more note for the substack, all while just trying to paint a picture to help smooth my brain.
I’m hooked, online, a Pisces who took the bait, and that walk becomes a rubber band, snapped back to my seat. The beautiful loop, only broken by my hands painting in between.
It’s time for a break. Today I’m offline.
