A Little Life List: Being Bored Could be...um... What You Need?
The big surprise when I took social media off my phone—an essay in pieces.
Little Life Lists are for the complicated, unruly things life throws at us. I encourage you to write your own, too. With coffee. xoxo
It wasn’t a surprise.
Taking social media off my phone made me itchy. Instagram, Facebook, Linked In, TikTok, X, Threads. Good god. They’re not gone, just off my phone. It’s not a big deal.
And
that first day was soaked in
um
boredom.
The scratchy kind.
****
I try with every ounce not to give this reply when people ask:
“How are you?”
…
“Busy.”
But. Life is busy. With four kids and my mother-in-law with Alzheimer’s, plus a job I love, a challenging book project, etc, the word busy is apt. Your life is busy, too.
Rush. Rush. Rush.
When life is this busy, we have to choose.
***
Disclaimer: All off, bar Substack. (Yes, it’s social media and, yes, it’s still on my phone).
***
COVID changed things. For some of us that looked boring, for others, bonkers. We all lost people, connections, more.
But.
In the days of homeschooling my kids, or staying up at night when my father underwent an operation on his brain, or watching my beloved Opa’s funeral on Zoom, and drinking my first drink at 2pm every day and thinking that was very normal, in the bonkers, I discovered a little quiet.
Not in my head, which was full of the news, but in my schedule.
Various things fell to the side and stayed gone.
Don’t get me wrong. I was so far from being bored that I wanted to be bored, but there wasn’t time.
I was busy.
Yet. I could see some white space in my schedule for the first time in a long time.
***
Fast forward a few years, all the hustle rushed back, and a 40 day break from social media on my phone seemed like a good idea. A place for space.
I was itchy.
Bored.
Finally.
That time between things, that white space in my schedule, crept back in. I stared out the window, watched fourteen turkey vultures cluster in the trees.
***
Spare Moments: During COVID, I wanted to hug my mum. When we first saw each other after it all, I let out a sob in the airport that other people heard. I want to linger in people I love before they’re gone.
Thinking in posts filled space: I never sat and stared out the window because (shhhh as this makes me hot with embarrassment) I was crafting sentences to fit an algorithm.
It circles to the question: what do I want to write. Posts on Instagram? A novel?
I love the work I do. After years of feeling like I was chasing rainbows, I’ve settled into the life of a writer and I’ve realised what makes me feel good is writing.
My current novel is not where I want it to be. Yet.
It might get there if I leave white space. If I don’t scroll for hours a day.
***
Being bored.
That’s where the white space is.
I knew that already. I knew it when my house was full of children and the world was in a panic and my mum was on the other side of the ocean.
I wanted it.
And now my children are at school and growing older, I can choose it.
xoxox
Alice
Share with me something you took out of your life that gave you some room.
Or something you read on here that you love.
Or a book you’ve enjoyed so I can add it to my TBR.
And please do share this essay in pieces with someone who might enjoy pausing today.
Reading more: Here are some facts about social media breaks and body image. Whole other essay.
***
All week, I’ve been reading Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp and I’m in pieces. It unpeels the layers of addiction and what that might mean.
***
I have PLANS to spend more time with
in her gorgeous Sparkle on Substack. She has such a terrific energy and appetite for creativity. I intend more of that. What do you intend more of?***
I shared this last week within the app:
Short Death Stories: Your Instructions for... (Can We Even Talk About This???)
A softer, more melancholic space—because by looking at death, I believe we experience life more vividly. Elegy and obituary, beautiful words both, language for the abyss.
If you’re new here, my name is Alice Kuipers and I’m a writer, mother and dog-owner transplanted twenty years ago to the Canadian prairies from England. I’ve published fourteen books in 36 countries and my writing has been described as: “For storytellers and story lovers,” by Kirkus Reviews; ‘Gorgeous, heart-ripping, important,” by VOYA; and “Intense and wonderful” by Bif Naked.
Join me for a coffee break on here.
Xoxo
First, both photos in this post are gorgeous! The vultures and your face in the sunshine 😊
During the pandemic I took ALL forms of 'busy' out of my life. After being laid off work I adopted a puppy and have never gone back to life the way it was. She's now a giant dog and she loves/needs her outdoor time which makes me have to be out there with her. I have a new love of pushing aside anything resembling 'to-do' lists to go outside now.
Alice, thanks for these pieces. Takes me back to a quick story and you'll see why. I was walking out of a library in Santa Fe, NM one day and saw a small woman bent over a table looking at a jigsaw puzzle with a thousand small pieces. I watched her take her time and put a couple of them into the growing picture and then said, out loud, "That looks very complicated." She looked up at me, smiled, and said, "It's like life, just little pieces fitting together." A wise woman!