It's Monday morning and it's before 7:00 am. It's Monday morning, the day after daylight savings, and I'm writing before 7:00 am. Someone pinch me, this can't be real. I'm looking at my gargantuan sized cup of coffee sitting next to me, thinking, "Why haven't I sipped you yet and why am I already in front of a computer?"
Day 5 of the My 500 Words writing challenge, that's why. I promised myself I would get up early and see what it's like to write in the mornings. There seems to be a lot of hype around it, and many of the greats did their best work before the sun was shining. Ah, first sip of coffee and hubby made it STRONG today! Holy moly, so yummy.
I must confess that my intention was to sit down and write before my mind got tainted by news and social media and stress. Unfortunately, the news is playing in the other room as I type (I think it might be the Today Show), and I've already burned a few brain cells mindlessly scrolling through Facebook. I don't know what it is about my cell phone, or social media in general, but I can not stop!! Seriously though, one of the first things I do when I open my eyes in the morning (aside from quickly turning my alarm off) is open Facebook!
Facebook has become my first news source (leaving it up to my Friends list to decide what news is newsworthy and share worthy, YIKES) but also my biggest burden. If I had a dollar for every time I opened the app on my phone (or even if I had a dollar for every minute I spent on it), I'm pretty sure I'd be set for life. That's ridiculous. There's something so habitual about the movement of my thumb while I'm scrolling through my News Feed. There's also something unnaturally satisfying about creeping on old friends. The more I write about it, the more I'm thinking about it and telling myself, "Robyn, this is not normal." Am I the only one that has a social media... oh gosh here it comes... addiction?
A couple months ago, my husband and I were prayerfully considering adoption. While we were praying about it, we decided to fast for a few days. It was a first for us. Instead of fasting carbs, or lunch each day, I fasted social media, and boy was it convicting. You don't realize how many times you open Facebook or Instagram just to mindlessly scroll until you are making a conscious effort not to. I'd unlock my phone just to say oh crap in my head and lock it again. That could have easily happened a dozen times or so a day. That's INSANE!
Here comes some nostalgia. Remember the good ole days? The days when cell phones weren't part of our DNA? When they weren't somehow connected to us during every waking hour of the day? I remember when I was a kid, I was obsessed with answering the phone (this was before elementary school kids were allowed to have cell phones. Seriously, parents, what's up with that?) Anywho, the house phone would ring and you could hear my feet thumping around upstairs as I raced to my parents' room to be the first to answer. This was before I had a phone in my room, and before I had my own land line. Remember those, 90's kids? We could three-way dial and *67 whoever we wanted, whenever we wanted, because it was our own phone line and we wouldn't tie up the house phone for important calls!
Back in the day when phone calls seemed like a privilege. I'm totally guilty of looking at my phone when it rings and thinking, "Ugh, what now?" Or, "Why couldn't you just text me?" And that just makes me realize how impersonal I am! I wish a simple phone call would trigger the same excitement as it did when I was little. Like, "oh boy, someone from the outside world is calling to make plans! Maybe it'll be Kathryn asking me to come over and swim!" Or, by the time junior and senior year of high school rolled around, "I better get the phone before mom and dad do in case the school is calling to tell them I missed class..."
Oh the confessions of an early morning blog post. And now you see my conviction. This was supposed to be an "untainted" piece of writing, but before I even pulled up the blank document to write, I'd already zombied my way through about a dozen people's Facebook updates. Come to think of it, I guess I'm not the only one that gets online way too early. There were already morning status updates by the time I made it on the app, and that wasn't too long after 6:00!
Now I need to make a goal for tomorrow, and since I can't help but feel like I screwed this morning's up, I'll just keep it the same. Tomorrow morning, while my curly (frizzy) hair is drying after my shower, and before I start swimming in other people's online business, I'm going to write a real, fresh outta bed kind of a blog post. I wonder what I would have written about had I not already been on Facebook. I think a good goal for the week would be to practice self control with my social media usage. Challenge accepted.
Stay tuned for more oh craps and I did it agains,
Robyn
P.S.- I just did a word count. 930 words... BEFORE 8am?! Maybe morning writing does work!