Scroll, scroll, scroll. That's me, on my phone, checking twitter. Checking instagram. Tweeting, hashtaging, uploading, replying, re-tweeting. And on and on it goes. I started tweeting more at the beginning of this year. Trying to build my audience, connecting with like-minded individuals. Sharing information, photos, blog posts. And it's been great.
But, see, I'm a bit all or nothing.
And soon I was doing it aimlessly. I stopped reading books (God, I feel awful typing that), days would pass me by, and my creativity that I should be reserving for my books, my writing, was being leached into one hundred and forty characters or less.
Scroll, scroll, scroll. Refresh, refresh, refresh.
Over the past couple of weeks, as I wrote in this post, I've taken a step back from twitter. And I deleted facebook from my phone.
But, on Saturday, I decided I needed to take a complete break from it.
There is a lot of worry, a lot of anxiety online. And I'm like a sponge. I soak it all up. There comes a point where you have to just stop.
And that's my cue to take a deep breath. To take a look around. See the beauty. Watch the chickens, see how the chicks have grown, how they squabble, how the ducks love their pool, the flowers swaying in the breeze, the moths and butterflies settling on the wildflowers.
I talk about embracing a slower life, but, just for a minute there, I was too caught up tweeting about a slow life, rather than experiencing it. I forget that tweeting is still part of my work. It's me not switching off. And switching off, taking a break is so important.
Since I came off twitter on Saturday, I've already found myself with an urge to write more. To get outside. To watch a film and read a book.
Funny that.
I won't be gone permanently from twitter and facebook. And I might still blog. After all, the words are tumbling out now.