on unplugging.

I've recently been feeling the need to unplug from all things internet. It's not that I'm an active poster or absolutely addicted but i'm starting to feel like i need to escape into my own, pure thoughts for a while.

I just downed a glass of mediocre wine.Thoughts are feeling looser now.

I've been teetering on the edge of wanting to give up networking for a bit - three days, a week, two weeks, a month and just work flat out. Photograph instead of share. But maybe sharing is part of how my creativity functions - can i really train myself to be creative in a way i'm not used to being creative? I wonder about how not being connected will affect me.I just need some space.

You know when things just point you in a certain direction? The other day I downloaded a TED talk by Sherry Turkle called "Connected, but alone?" where she discusses the whole us using social networking as a method of escaping ever having to be truly alone - having nobody to listen to our every thought (or at least the ones we want to put out there on the interwebs). I didn't get the watch the whole thing as it turns out I have this thing called a class that eats away at all my TED viewing time. The very important thing to notice is that talk spoke to me in a way that I'd never heard that perspective before - possibly because I've never really listened all that hard.

So, that was point one and then, later, while I was having my contemplative stroll I, blasting the 'new' Florence album, when All This And Heaven started playing and we just *connected* and suddenly in that space I was in the lyrics and I found some common ground and now I find myself waiting for that third sign.

Things come in threes and then I'll quit the habit for a while.

Give myself a break.

not exactly the person i thought i'd be [with apologies]

I have been unhappy with my life as of late. No, not unhappy about my life, I am unhappy about myself. I feel disconnected from everybody and everything. I don’t feel like I am doing myself justice – I don’t deserve to be this person I see in the mirror. I want to be that person I see smiling in photographs; I want to be the self assured, overconfident person I was a few months back. I want that balanced, rounded person back.

When I look in the mirror I am dissatisfied and I can see what a friend told me once : my eyes are broken. They don’t show how I am really feeling or how I want to be feeling. How did it come to this? How did I become this disappointment to myself? Am I really that pathetic person who gets up every morning without a vision? Without enthusiasm?

How did it come to this?

I feel like I have lost so much, I feel distant from the world, I can’t fit the pieces of the puzzle back together. It is all so confusing and alienating and I don’t want to get out of bed. I want to curl up under the covers and forget myself, forget the world, forget the people I have hurt. I hurt the people I care about and by doing this I hurt myself. I don’t want to be cruel and I know that deep down every judgment I pass is a reflection of inner conflict. I highlight and exaggerate the bad habits and irritating qualities of people I know. Do I really think she is a bitch? No, I think she has shit she has to sort out but she isn’t a bitch. And I apologize for passing that judgment.

I am out of control. I act purely impulsively and it feels like logical-me has packed up her bags and given up on our relationship. She has left and I am left with all this raw emotion I can’t cope with – I want to label it, put it in a box so it can’t hurt me, but I can’t get it to stand still long enough to even see what it is. And the pain is unbearable at times – both physical and emotional – and it is so raw. This out of control feeling makes me jump – make rash, stupid decisions that I did not want to make. I do not have regrets except for the way I acted towards a person I think is an incredible human being. I have no idea what possessed me in that split second and I don’t think I ever really will understand it – I wanted to say good-bye, wish you a safe journey but everything fell apart and some feral part of me took over. And I am sorry that happened. Truly, truly sorry.

I don’t know who I am around other people – sometimes I recognize myself in intelligent conversation but other times I have no idea why I am putting on this front. Yes, I am a dead honest person or at least I try to be. I over share unwanted information and I ask too many questions but I am still trying to figure it all out. Lately, I haven’t been honest. People ask me what I am doing with my year and I lie and tell them my GAP year is going great, everything according to plan. It isn’t. I am lost and confused and I have never felt this alone before. It feels worse in crowds – I don’t stick. In the middle of polite conversation I feel isolated and alone.

When I meditate my mind goes to dark places – every door I open shows me something terrifying and so many things that I don’t want to see. I feel disconnected from my spirituality and question my fate, my destiny. I feel like I am choosing it right now and that it is all going to be a big mistake. I fear for the future more than ever. Is the universe hearing my prayers or have I fallen off the map?

I am not the person I want to be – I barely recognize myself? Where did my balance go? Where is that feisty person I really know? Where is my passion? My compassion?

I need change. I need to find this inner demon and dispose of it. I don’t know how yet but I want to move past this and abandon all the things I dislike about my current self. I want to see the world through fresh eyes and not this.

Change.