rejuvenated

Dear Ciara, It has been some time since I’ve written. I took the holidays to actually rejuvenate, to realign myself, and honestly—I’m feeling refreshed for the first time in a long time. The move was exhausting, and I felt all the changes associated with it creeping into my work life. But now, something has shifted. Part of it, I admit, has been because of recent changes I have made to the way I engage with the world. Like many, I had a tendency to doomscroll—to seek solace in the endless scroll—but a few weeks ago my phone just stopped. For a few days, while I waited for repairs, I was completely without it. During the first two days without it, I kept reaching for my pocket in moments of silence, desperately searching for the companionship it offered. By the third day, I had completely forgotten about it. My spare time became filled with reading, with thinking, and I found that I no longer needed to be constantly stimulated. When eating a meal at work, for example, I didn’t need to…