While I was sitting on the banks of the Canal, I felt a deep pang of something that reminded me of a show I once watched and wrote about called The Comeback Show. The costar of the show, Rachel Fleishman, reaches a breaking point in her life, where she buries her phone in the woods to both literally and figuratively cut herself off from all that was troubling her.
That day on the banks, I related to Rachel – so badly needing to chuck my phone into the canal and let it sink deep down to the bottom where I could finally be free. Free from the men that kept trying to follow me, free from the incessant need to check my Instagram notifications, free from the impulse to scroll, comparing my life to the lives of people who seem to have it all (but are also secretly suffering behind closed doors, just like me).
Free from the connections to my old self, my old life, my old ways. Needing to cut contact from everybody who keeps me tied to my old self— like Taylor says, “she can’t come to the phone right now, she’s dead.”
Drawing a Line
While it would be wonderful to let my phone sink into oblivion, I would have to go buy another one. Instead, I have to come to terms with cutting off whatever holds me back and is not healthy for me and break ties from the me that is holding me down (and the people who helped me stay there).
Whatever it takes, that proverbial line has to be drawn, whether that’s blocking people, changing my number, putting my phone down in a separate room and refusing to look at it until I’ve regained a sense of peace. Just like Rachel, I needed to bury my phone at times and create other boundaries between me and the old me—while giving myself space to grieve the old me, scream if need be and let go of anything that is not healthy
There comes a time when we need to find who we truly are and come home to her. I couldn’t manage this treasure hunt while traipsing through things that tied me to my false self. I had to let her die, grieving the losses that inevitably came from cutting off, so many ties.
As painful as this phase has been, I am finally coming home to myself, my true self. And that feels like truly important work. The kind that yields dividends for years to come.