Eat, Pray, Deactivate

Hello hello!

I’m back. Again. I missed you. Again.

So a few weeks ago something happened that I really wanted to write about here, one of those moments where life gives you a little nudge and says, “Write this down, silly.”

But I was drowning in deadlines. Drenched in unread emails, unfinished drafts, and that buzzy kind of burnout where your body keeps moving but your soul has filed for early retirement.

So I archived the moment. Tucked it away in that mental infamous folder. You know the one. Dusty, emotionally loaded, blinking like a notification.

But it came back. It resurfaced. As these things always do. So here I am.

It started on a day where I’d had enough. Enough of performing. Enough of being perceived. Enough of being so damn reachable. The idea of existing felt heavy. Like I was made of glass and everyone had a hammer to play with. So I did what I always do when the existential dread gets loud; I disappeared. Or at least, I tried to.

I deactivated my Instagram account.

Which, in my brain’s warped logic, is the ultimate “opt out.” Like if I’m not online, I’m not real. Like I could hit “Deactivate” and just slip between the pixels, untraceable.

My friend asked me why I did it. I said, “I just don’t want to exist right now.” I used the word exist and I meant it. Not in a scary way. Just… in a deeply tired way.

That kind of tired where you don’t want a nap, you want an intermission. A full blackout. A ‘please hold’ screen for the soul.

Here’s where it gets weird.

A couple of hours later, I got a call from another friend. We hadn’t spoken in a while. He just needed help structuring his screenplay. So I walked him through it, step by step, until it finally clicked for him.

And right before we hung up, he said, “Thank you for existing.”

Yep.

I short-circuited. My brain glitched. The simulation cracked. Like… okay, universe, I hear you. Message received.

I reactivated my account shortly after, obviously. LOL.

It felt… intentional. Uncomfortably poetic. Like I was being observed by something with a sense of irony and excellent timing.

I remember being so excited to come here and write about that moment. To say something uplifting about signs from the universe. That maybe when we feel the least visible, something or someone reminds us we still matter. That we’re still important.

But here’s the twist: I didn’t write it then, because life got loud again.

And now I’m writing it on a day where the feeling is back. I do not want to exist. It’s a different kind of ache this time, though. Not as sharp, but just as hollow. Like the volume of my life has been turned down too low to dance to.

There’s no big trigger. No dramatic heartbreak. Just… a quiet exhaustion. Maybe it’s burnout. Maybe it’s the psychological hangover of having to be “on” all the time. Or maybe it’s what happens when you’ve given so much of yourself to the world that there’s nothing left for your own interiority. 

There’s this guilt that creeps in when I crave absence. Like needing space makes me ungrateful. Or broken. Or too much. But I’m learning (slowly, painfully) that pulling away isn’t always self-sabotage. Sometimes it’s survival. Sometimes it’s the only way we can hear ourselves think.

And if you’re reading this and you’ve felt this way too, I don’t have a fix for you. (not yet, at least) Just solidarity. Just a little light. Just this, in Virginia Woolf’s voice: 

(or what I imagine to be her voice)

“I am rooted, but I flow.”

So maybe this is what existing really is. Not being “on” all the time. Not being seen 24/7. But flowing in and out. Disappearing and returning. Losing signal, then recharging.

And maybe one day, I’ll let myself vanish for real. But right now, unfortunately, I can’t afford to disappear. Not for the next three months, at least. Life won’t let me. But here’s a promise I’m making to myself: Every chance I get, I’ll slip into my cocoon. Even if just for ten minutes. Ten sacred, un-performed, unbothered minutes of silence.

Until then, I’ll keep showing up. Rooted, but flowing.

XOXO 

Your emotionally over-cooked FFB