My Nemesis the iPhone and The Dreaded One Armed Hug

I’ve tried, several times, to start a piece on “My Nemesis The iPhone”, and have as of yet been unsuccessful.  I hope what I have to say right now will be relatively short but nonetheless meaningful and I really hope I’m not alone in my feelings! 

I cannot hear God amidst clutter; any type of clutter that sort of “clogs” my senses. 

I just moved my boys, per their pleading, into separate rooms and had to clean out a closet that hasn’t been clean since 2008.  So much junk and clutter.  When my house is messy (and I mean there’s 9 years-worth of clutter and trash to sort through and purge) I cannot see straight. 

Now that I’m not working and at some point we plan on selling this house, I had hoped to gradually de-junk, minimize and declutter the whole house.  “Gradually” turned into “right now” as the aforementioned closet, while creating a tidy room for both boys, has figuratively vomited all over the rest of the house everything from old pictures to my old palm pilot now that it’s “cleaned out”. 

I cannot focus. 

When there are a lot of loud noises or my children cannot shut their sweet little nagging, crying mouths, such as when I pick up my phone to answer a call or to make one.  Noise clutter creates an environment in which I simply cannot concentrate (and this situation ALWAYS ERRUPTS when I am on the phone… there are never any life or death needs prior to me actually responding to a call or text). 

OR, I get distracted with what’s going on in the lives of others. 

OR I get focused in on something that caused me some sort of emotional penalty.  You know, when you are sort of offended by something someone says on Facebook and you want to do something about it but know that it’s just stupid Facebook and everyone has “internet courage” and emotional distance from each other and it all means NOTHING??  Yeah.  That’s a big distraction too.

What am I distracted from?   My children, and their often loud, silly mouths, are my priority right now.  They need me to pay attention to their words and to guide them; to teach them not only manners (when someone is on the PHONE!) but also to be respectful of those around them and aware of their presence if not their needs.  I’m supposed to be training them in the Faith, listening for God and following Him.   

I have a desire and a built in servanthood towards my children that I believe all mothers do.  This leads me to question, what else is not conducive to what I have been called to do?  What else makes “noise”?  What other “clutter” do I have to wade through?

Oh friends, my phone makes noise and is simultaneously a lot of emotional clutter. 

That silly iPhone is no longer a device used simply to call family and friends, to inquire on business dealings, my phone is a tool.  It is a tool that can guide me to wherever I want to go via GPS.  It is a tool that I use to check my bank account, to shop, to keep track of my fitness goals…  I’m always checking.  I’m checking texts, Facebook notifications, emails… some of them are important to the livelihood of our family… I pay bills and want to make sure that they were paid, etc.

The majority of this “checking” however, is simply an addiction.  The worst of which is social media.  I check, check and recheck.  I WANT people to like my posts, gosh darn it.  We all kind of want that. 

The other part of that is I want to share.  Sometimes I get frustrated and upset or even happy and overwhelmed and I want to commune with people who feel the same.  A “like” isn’t just a clicking of a button sometimes its effects reach a little further.

I’ve read a few studies on this.  I know it is far reaching.  It reaches into our brains, our “pleasure center” our existence and most importantly our sense of worth even though it is a non-feeling, non-breathing thing, we sometimes treat it like our best friend. 

It is more than just a phone or a tool.  How many people do you see staring at their phones especially while they’re talking to you?  There’s this immediacy when you have a question or something to check on.  “I wonder if this place is open tomorrow.”  Boom, out comes the phone and while you check on that you see a notification from something else and off on a rabbit trail you go.

I was at Sam’s today and a man walked right in front of our cart.  I thought we were in his way so I said “excuse me” and he just looked and walked straight past me, mumbling like a zombie.  It took me a minute to realize he was talking on the phone on some blue tooth thingy. 

This morning I was lying in bed.  I had just checked my email and had my phone in my hand.  Josie came up to me and said, “I don’t want to get dressed yet.  We need to snuggle first.”  So, unlike some other times, I totally put my phone down, moved over and held her under the warm blankets with both arms.  It was a glorious moment.  She’s a quick moving, spunky girl and a treasure those times we can just snuggle like that. 

This is when I realized that life amongst all this clutter particularly that of my iPhone and social media is like getting and giving one-armed hugs. 

You know what I mean, right?  You either don’t know someone really well or they don’t really know you or you don’t really want to be that close to someone… for whatever reason, you don’t fully embrace.  You do the one-armed hug, the shoulder lean, the opposite direction head tilt maneuver.  It’s a good analogy for the times I find myself surrounded by emotional clutter.  I am certainly not fully invested in what’s going on around me.  I do it on purpose sometimes.  It’s like playing a game for me and sometimes it’s good to get distracted when I feel stressed out and need a mental break.  All the time though, and I’m not fully embracing the life I’m living. 

When Bryce was born I had no iPhone.  So the nights I put him to bed or got up in the night or tried to get him to nap I wasn’t holding a phone in my hand while I waited for him to fall asleep.  I’m not really sure what I was doing, I have momnesia but I was probably at the very least engaged in what was going on.  Fast forward to Josie.   So many times I put her to bed and just sit there and play on my phone while she goes to sleep.  It’s like I’m not really even there sometimes.  How shameful is that? 

Heaven knows social media and blogging have certainly given me a previously non-existent avenue to share something I love, writing.  I’m grateful for that.  That aside, I hope I’m not alone but I’m just really tired of the one-armed hugs.  I want to really experience this life I’ve been blessed with and certainly hear God when he speaks.  I don’t want to be distracted.  I want all my senses tuned in to what is going on around me.

So, if you see me out and about without my phone and I talk to you, not really sure if I remember how to do this eye contact thing, please understand I’m trying to be right there, right then with you not wading through clutter.    

Last night I was making a trip to the drug store right before bedtime.  The sun had just set and the last of its rays in the West were glancing off these thunder boomers to the east.  The sky was this deep sea blue that still held a little bit of the day's lightand the giant clouds just poured over the horizon in different shades of white and grey, like they had been painted there, the tops of which were the brightest because they held the sunset and the bottoms dark, and rooted to the earth.  It's spring and the air was warm and breezy.  This time of year all the crickets, frogs and cicadas start to sing at night even with all the cars rumbling here and there.  I could smell the green grass and the blossoms of those terrible red tipped phontinias and wished there were honeysuckles close by.  I took a picture when I was stopped at a light, it's the one at the beginning of this post.  That silly phone didn't capture any of that. 

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