Qualia

So I wrote this Poem in September 2024 because I was going through a bit of a phone addiction. Like, my husband was always saying “babe, babe, babe,” and I’d just be scrolling and scrolling through instagram. I mean, it was bad, even my kids were becoming increasingly frustrated with my phone use during movie nights; but I genuinely couldn’t help it at the time because I was escaping some deep career related depression.

Alright so during this severe “phone addiction” phase I was a Barista at Serendipity 3 and only working maybe 3 days a week making possibly $100 a week. It was fucking depressing. No tips, no extra hours, no raises, just 3 days of busting my ass for $100 and people wondering why the Baristas were so miserable at the job. I mean, we’re surrounded by servers who work the same amount of hours and make upwards of $2,000 a week.

So not only was that humiliating (being a mother of 3, in her 30’s, barely making enough money to buy food), I was also depressed because I felt like I was failing in the human services field. I quit my job as a Residential Aide and then got fired from another job a few months later because working in residential facilitates is a miserable profession! But it’s a profession that I wanted to do so not doing it at the time and making less than a livable wage made me turn into my phone.

See my phone was a place that I could escape to because Social media is all about escapism. Everything is fake, nothing is actually real, life is curated and every detail is preciously planned! I thrived off scrolling uncontrollably and living through people who I could only assume was making so much money they could go on vacations, pay a ridiculous amount in rent with no roommates and donate to orphanages. Of course, they don’t have kids to constantly worry about.

But something happened one day when my husband told me how much him and the kids were suffering from my mental absence. I was there physically, but my mind was absent thinking of ways to validate my worth outside of what I perceived as failures.

I decided to just stop feeling sorry for myself, look at the bright side and move on. So I stopped scrolling, got a job I can at least be proud of, and made a conscious effort to be present for my family even if I’m going through some weird midlife crisis. Maybe one could say, I Paused The Apps.

—Firefly