No Video For Fear of Becoming Untethered

Since the beginning of summer, I have had a nagging feeling that things just weren’t right. I couldn’t identify it and I wasn’t sure what was brining it about. The other day, staring out the window on a train from NYC, I realized that I felt disconnected from my own life, like I was watching from a distance. Now, this is not some melancholy, whoa-is-me post. Rather, it’s a realization that I wasn’t just on auto-pilot, but that aut0-pilot had veered off on a wrong course.

We, as a family have been a bit out of control. Our food choices, money choices and time choices have been anything but prudent. We’ve been on our heels, reacting, instead of living our lives. That is why I felt so disconnected.

So, we’re taking back our days around here. The Husband and I are on a food cleanse to try to reign in our beer-guzzling, sugar-laden ways. I was leading one as part of Real Life Wellness and we both decided we needed to be part of it. That lead to me declaring the house on Tech Cleanse too. My kids had become zombie-like in their reliance on screens to fill their days. I figured cold turkey was the way to go for a week and then we’ll institute tougher regulations when we return to screen time next week.

Finally, we are on what my children have called a “Bank cleanse”. Other than food or gas for the car, we aren’t spending money this week. We had gotten a little loosey-goosey with our finances, nothing huge but a few too many dinners out and ice cream trips from the beach. We won’t go poor from it, but we also won’t get ahead when we’re just throwing cash around like we’re made of it, not to mention what lessons we’re bestowing with that kind of behavior. I was noticing in my kids an air of entitlement that I have feared since I gave birth. They were starting to act like kids who get whatever they want, because, quite frankly, they were mostly getting it.

I think because I’ve had to say no for so many years that as soon as I got a taste of being able to say yes, I couldn’t stop. Well, that’s clearly not working for anyone so the end must come.

On Day Two of our full house cleanse, I can say that my head aches but my heart is more full. My kids are already getting along better. I’m spending more time playing with them and less time working while they video-game themselves to death. (It’s amazing how efficient one gets with three faces staring at them from the office door.) We’ve even survived no ice cream for two whole days. That’s pretty impressive considering where we started!

I’m not sure any of this will help, but I know that when I have done nutritional cleanses in the past, they have served as a jump-start to better habits and better way of life. I sure am hoping the same holds true for these new types of “cleanses” because I need to feel part of my life again. I can’t remain floating above it all, especially untethered.