My head is buzzing today. Like a hive of angry bees swarming around their queen, I can’t figure out which way to go to accomplish the extensive to-do list before me. And when there is SO much to do, I find myself opting to do none of it.

Instead, I read a book (which, I usually don’t see as a waste of time, but is an avoidance when there are more pressing activities to be done) watch TV, or scroll on social media until the END OF TIME.

At one point today I closed the Twitter tab on my browser, picked up my phone to clear notifications and when I went to open the file I needed to edit, muscle memory had me opening a tab for Twitter all over again!

When I post something on one platform, I end up posting it to the rest, in hopes of maintaining and growing the community of followers that somehow have found me in the vast expanse of online entertainment, and in doing so, I lose just a smidge more energy to devote to other efforts.

The amusement I funnel into tweets, and posts, and witty responses siphon off the shallow wellspring of snark otherwise allocated towards the fictional characters patiently awaiting my return in the various poorly named word docs squirreled away in the underbelly of my computer.

I need a social media cleanse.

But why is it so much easier said than done?

Probably because the Twitter community has become my primary means of social interaction over the last year, and I enjoy talking with everyone. But as an introvert, my proverbial batteries deplete from constant stimuli and communication. So while I enjoy chatting, and interacting, and building up this community, it’s wearing me down or distracting me in the process.

I’m not going to declare in 250 or so characters to the world that I’m taking a break, because I know myself, and I will still be online constantly.

But I am going to make an effort to shut it all down multiple times a day for writing, meditation, and personal reflection to try to restore some balance to the force of nature I need at my disposal to distill into my books.

Once I have an agent and have been published I can put down my proverbial pen, pull out a bottomless box of bonbons that would make Mary Poppin’s purse envious, and spend all my time finding out what people are canceling or what David Tennant and Michael Sheen are up to these days.

…and maybe then, when that is all that is expected of me, the intense pressure to create, write, and do so with an air of grace and poise will be gone, and the roaring of angsty bees will subside.