The First Days

The first day wasn't too bad.  I felt terrible when I received a text I could not reply to. Thankfully it was a coworker I could talk to the next day.  At first I was going to try to not tell people I gave up texting, well at least not through text, but then I decided it was worse to be rude.  

After the first two days the texts started to wan off.  People knew I wasn't going to text them back so they stopped texting me.  I felt like a junkie checking to see if anyone gave me love.  No love.  A part of me wanted to reach out, but I couldn't.  This was starting to be harder than I thought.  I missed my distraction.  I missed my junk connections.  I would see something and have the urge to text it, and then would forget what it was when I actually saw them.  I did however, notice something strange.  The first few days I started to be able to recall things faster.  Words that would usually sit on the tip of my tongue, or in the far reaches of my brain were starting to bubble up.  It was amazing.  I'm always searching for a word or name, and suddenly I was able to recall it.  I don't know if this is directly linked to the giving up texting, but I did note it.  We will see if this progresses.  

The third day got very difficult.  I started Google searching again to find that studies done showed people felt lonely and isolated without their phones.  Yup, that's exactly how I felt.  People were out doing things and I couldn't send the quick mass text to see what was up.  Commence Friends binge watching.

This won't be that hard, right?

For Lent this year I decided to give up texting.  It shouldn't be that hard right?  I only do it constantly throughout the day.  I constantly am distracted by what to text others, or waiting for a reply.  Why haven't they replied?  I realized that texting was the root of my distractions, and at the root of some of  anxiety in relationships.  Search the  web and you'll find stories of how texting is uprooting our ability to communicate in person and can lead to junk relationships.  I also noticed the ability to text my thoughts and feelings without filtering them. So, I decided to give it up, and live in the now, not on my phone.

Searching other stories for tips, tricks, or success stories I came across some interesting ideas, but most people don't last 72 hours.  One person lasted a week.  She never looked at her text messages so she had no idea who was reaching out or why.  I'm surprised she lasted a week, that would have driven me nuts.  

Without much to go off of other than "texting is bad for you" type articles I had to set my own rules and guidelines. 

Rule 1.  Don't Text.

That's obvious, but harder than you might think.  I decided that I could reply to work texts, and logistical type of responses, "I'm here" or "Metro is stuck." type of deals.  Hopefully though as I go through this experience I won't actually have to succumb.  Only if absolutely necessary.

Rule 2: Don't Cheat.

This is where things get gray.  I decided that facebook messaging is cheating.  Snapchat and Instagram are also kind of cheating.  This has nothing to do with texting itself, but they become easy ways to send quick messages.  I decided to back off of them for now.  When the itch becomes too strong I might go back.