I’m going to go ahead and post this tonight rather than tomorrow because I don’t want anyone to think it is an April Fool’s Joke. Seriously, April 1 is the day you are safest from me pulling a prank out of any day of the year.

I’m taking a 2 week break from Twitter.

There’s a bunch of reasons but none of them big or bad. One is that I want to avoid April Fool’s Day stuff as so little of it is ever done well. Another is that I now default to checking Twitter over everything. I need to break myself of the habit and I don’t think anything short of 2 weeks will be enough for that. I’ve also been noticing a lot of avoidant behavior in myself, cringing away from things I find scary, including writing. Twitter makes it too easy for me to avoid that discomfort rather than work through it. I’m not going to grow as a person or a writer if I don’t get over myself and stay in my own lane. It turned out to be a very good time for me to do this, so I’m just biting the bullet and doing it. I’m blocking access on all of my computers and deleting the apps from phone and tablet.

I’ve been really weird about being out of connectivity since 9/11 and I don’t really know why. I mean I spent the days after curled up on our bed watching Cartoon Network for 72 hours straight or something. I couldn’t stand the quiet, but I couldn’t stand the news either and it was the only channel I could find that didn’t have ANY news. After that I got into the habit of checking the news online several times a day, sometimes several times an hour. I’ve slowly gotten away from that over the last 14 years but have seemingly just traded checking news for checking Twitter and I feel really uncomfortable when I don’t, especially when I’m in front of a computer.

I’m really geographically isolated and most of my socialization is over Twitter, so there’s a real possibility this could leave me feeling more isolated than normal. That’s the reasoning I’ve always given myself for not doing this before.

I want to consciously choose the time I spend there and be mindful of it. I don’t know a way (for me) to do that without a lengthy break from it.

I’m not seeking isolation! I’m hoping to reach out via email, text, phone, hangout, letters and what have you and I hope some of you will do the same. This is a good time to make sure I have your current email and contact information. You can always email me at minervazimmerman at gmail dot com, or use my contact form.  I hope that many of you will reach out to do Conversations Between Writers  and otherwise just harass me in the time I’m away from Twitter.

Hope to hear from you soon, otherwise I’ll see you when I come back.

-M