time spent offline

All addiction is escapism.

The first time I hear you can smoke inside the casino Downtown Detroit, I can’t believe my ears. “You’re lying,” I say to him in disbelief. He’s more than happy to show this Canadian girl what else the Land of the Free can offer, including the right to smoke indoors— in designated areas but nonetheless indoors. You smell it long before you see the people pressing buttons rapidly with a cigarette dangling from their mouth. I feel like I’m in a movie from the 70s, the only other time I have seen such things before. It’s a new feeling. He’s looking at me pleased, wondering how someone can be so delighted by such simple things. I’m wondering who’s wearing diapers so they won’t have to leave their slot machine for bathroom break. And for my last weekend in Detroit, as a farewell— knowing I will probably never make it back to this part of town again— I get all dressed up and Uber my way downtown to the casino. I sit by one of the slot machines, pull out a cigarette, and I look around. This is allowed, I assure myself. I smoke two cigarettes just to be sure. I don’t touch the slot machines. I have no desire to. I look around and wonder how people can lose so much of their lives to these obnoxiously loud machines with their dizzying bright lights. The casino feels like death to me. I only came here to exercise my right to smoke indoors. I leave.

But I never judge. I know too well of an addiction to a different kind of slot machine, one that fits snugly in the back pocket of my too-tight jeans. In fact I never have to resort to wearing diapers because I could just bring it with me everywhere I go, including the bathroom: Scroll, scroll, scroll; Pissssssss. This is normal, I assure myself. I bring it to bed too; stare at it until my eyes are so heavy with sleep that I shove it under my pillow and pass out— the bedside table is cluttered with books and the lamp anyway. You know what, tomorrow I will read before bed, I assure myself. It’s the first thing I touch the next morning too. I turn off the alarm and open one app after the next; scroll, scroll, scroll. I scroll as I make my way to the bathroom, then back to the bedroom. I scroll while waiting for the coffee to brew. I scroll while waiting in line for more coffee, groceries, my blood test results. I scroll while he’s talking to me too: “Babe!” I look up from my phone, disoriented by reality. “Sorry, I was just…Um…” Fuck. He’s annoyed, “Can you just put that thing away?” I can’t, you see there is something wrong with me.

A potent childhood memory of mine is being left alone. The adults were around but they wouldn’t get near me. She says she suffers from the same infliction: “I remember being left alone for hours,” she tells me of her childhood memories over Mall fries, “nobody came to check on me.” Can you believe it? I do, I believe her, I don’t remember her at all— Although we lived under the same roof her entire life and most of mine. That’s one of my coping mechanisms: If you forget, it is as if it didn’t happen. I can forget at whim. “You remember in high school?” What!? Except you don’t get to choose what you forget and what you remember— nothing bad happened, thank god, but nothing good either. Another one: The adults wouldn’t get near me because there is something wrong with me. They were repulsed by me. “Where did you learn that?” she asks. I think about it for a moment. I have never thought about where these things come from; where I learned to deem myself repulsive and unworthy. “I came up with it,” I tell her. The adults wouldn’t get near me because there’s something wrong with me. There is something wrong with me. Nobody bothered to correct me; they were all too busy with their own misery. In my desperation to feel better than feeling inherently defective, I ran. The internet just exploited that: Here, ignore yourself, there is something wrong with you.

And for years, I put up a fierce fight against the attention economy. I read all the books, essays, articles, and tried all the tips and tricks to get offline until one day I was on the floor sobbing: There is something wrong with me. “What if it’s not true?” she’s asking me. I’m wondering what things she’s jotting down on her iPad; In distress, childhood trauma, resilient. I wonder if it’s a trick question: Of course it’s true, it’s been true my whole life. Stupid bitch. I smile at her and respond with a question— I’m buying time, I don’t want to have been wrong all these years: “What do you mean?” I ask. She says what if I was wrong about the adults’ assessment of me, what if their reason for not getting near me had nothing to do with me. She repeats back to me what I have told her of their lives, their childhood, what they had to endure. “What if,” she continues and I want her to shut up. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO DEFEND THEM! YOU HAVE NO FUCKING RIGHT! We both smile at each other, acknowledging there is a certain pain, a certain void no amount of reasoning can mend. No amount of scrolling can fix.

Instead, I start talking to the adults. Face to face. Without running away to the internet to soothe my discomfort. Do you love me? Yes, yes very much so. What the fuck. Was I wrong this whole time? I start paying attention, listening very carefully when they speak so I never misinterpret their intentions again. I spend more time with them too; see them more often. Face to face. I have nothing better to do. I need people, I need their company. In-between, I call them and we talk for hours. There’s still a part of me— the pain, the void no amount of talking can mend— that wants to rage. YOU HAVE NO FUCKING BUSINESS BEING FRIENDS WITH THEM! I wince, but I don’t run away from it. I stand still. I say to the pain let’s go lift weights, we’ll feel better when we fit well in them jeans. Fine. Let’s make plans to see so-and-so, they’re always a great time! Fine. What about a walk? FINE. I’m Glad My Mom Died? That’s pretty good. I learn to escape better. And in-between I talk to strangers to pass the time. They all say things to me that reminds me, despite all that we must endure, life is beautiful and it is worth paying attention to.