Then I Was…

A couple of weekends past, I traveled to wild, wonderful, West Virginia with 5 of my good friends. We stayed at a cabin in the woods, ate, drank, played games, talked, hiked, and had a wonderful time.

It had been a while since I was away with a group of my peers. Hanging out with people your own age is pretty cool. We joked about the problems of getting older, looking forward to retirement – although it’s a little way off still – and being able to devote ourselves to hobbies and interests we’ve not had time for in recent years.

The first day, we went for a nine-mile hike in Dolly Sods – a high-altitude plateau with a crazy amount of water and rocks. We walked in stream beds, over beaver dams, across fields, and through forests and it was lovely, and exhausting. What a great way to spend a beautiful early spring day. The three dogs we had along had the time of their lives! One of them fell in the water – twice – but only his pride was damaged. We saw five beaver lodges and lots of trees downed by the flat-tailed engineers, which was super cool, but no actual varmints.

After we survived the hike we made dinner, then feasted on our meal, drank our adult beverages of choice (chocolate peanut butter whiskey anyone?) and played board games and shuffleboard. I even managed to make a few slick moves on the shuffleboard table. It was a lot of fun, and a reminder that there is more to life than Twitter, Instagram, and Amazon Prime video.

The second day it snowed – crazy weather. So we drank coffee/tea (more whiskey) and talked about the state of the world, changes to our home town, and life. We checked Twitter first thing – to check on the Ukraine – but the rest of the day was spent away from social media, and screens, and mind-numbing sameness. We watched the snow fall – always beautiful if you don’t have to be out in it – snuggled with the dogs and played more games!

We’ve all become so accustomed to spending our days, and our nights, glued to a computer; it’s easy to forget about simple pleasures that are not that hard to find. Maybe it’s not that easy to get to a wilderness area for a hike on a Wednesday evening – but it is pretty easy to go for a walk. For a change – don’t put headphones in your ears – listen to the birds and what’s going on around you, and don’t forget to look up – the sky and trees are amazing (or, for you city dwellers, the sky and buildings). As far as the games go – why not make a plan to get together with 2 or 3 friends and try out a new game? We played Qwixx – which is an inexpensive dice game you can get from Amazon. It’s fun and easy and you can get an app on your phone for the score sheet to save paper.

If hiking or playing board games doesn’t appeal – no worries! Find your own way to unplug: paint, read a book, do yoga, ride a bike, write some fan fiction – whatever you enjoy is perfect!

My weekend away reminded me to get outside, get off my couch, put away my phone, and spend time with friends. Try unplugging for a day and see what it reminds you of.

Brennan time:

Every weekday morning, I roll out of bed, throw on my pair of fire New Balances, and go for a walk. I didn’t always start out my day so damn productively though. Throughout college and early on in my job, I would always set my alarm for ~20 minutes before my day started. Whether I was logging onto a meeting or walking to class, I would try to get as much sleep as possible and make it there right on time. I realized pretty early on (after falling asleep during multiple meetings and feeling restless during my whole day) that my days were shit until the point when I could log off work. I needed to make a change.

So I started walking in the mornings, and boy does it make a huge difference. Just getting outside provides a healthy dose of serotonin to start off the day. Most days I listen to a podcast or one of my favorite albums, but reading about my mom’s fire weekend in West Virginia has made want to leave the AirPods ($$$) at home and listen to the birds and sounds of nature.

On the note of being accustomed to being on my phone / laptop all day, I have been feeling that recently more than ever. I took some time and reflected on my screen usage and realized it might actually be worse than I thought. I wake up and I look at Instagram for 10 minutes. Then, I go on my morning walk and listen to a podcast. When I get home, I go to YouTube to find a yoga video to watch. Then, I sit down at my laptop and barely get up for the next 9 hours. Once I finish work, I exercise for about 1 hour, then I return home, eat dinner, and watch a movie or show. There is something so easy about watching a movie, but every time when the curtains close, I am left feeling unfulfilled. Maybe next time my friends and I have a movie night, we will all play Quixx instead so we can connect and have fun together rather than watching a screen for 2 hours, not talking at all, then going home.

All in all, I’d say that about 80% of my time is spent plugged into a device, and I don’t like it at all. Please reply with a comment if you do like that you spend so much time on your phone or laptop. I’d be interested to see if anybody likes how so many of us are forced by big technology and corporate America into spending our daily lives.

This weekend, my friends and I have a big hike in Shenandoah National Park planned. I am ecstatic to have a trip out in nature in a beautiful part of the world. I am also ecstatic that my weekend plans do not involve getting drunk, which inevitably causes me to hate my life on Sundays.

While at Shenandoah, I will be sure to look up, take in the trees and beauty, and hopefully see some birds of prey. I love birds of prey man, they’re so badass. Anyway, I can’t wait to have the opportunity to unplug and be in nature surrounded by some of my best friends this weekend. Hopefully it lives up to the electric weekend trip that my mom had down in West Virginia, but I don’t think there’s any way that my friends can live up to the hype.

I haven’t necessarily unplugged yet, but I believe that if we were all able to unplug, all of our lives would be prodigiously better. To me, there’s not one thing that I do on my phone that is fulfilling long term, but I still spend multiple hours a day on it. If I were able to cold turkey being on my phone, and spend more time working on things that I genuinely care about like this blog, how would I not be happier overall?