I Miss Being Unreachable.

When did everyone get access to us all the time?

I realize the title of this is slightly misleading because I have had a cell phone for basically my entire adult life. And also, this is a real pivot from my usual posts, but honestly it’s been something that I have been thinking a lot about lately as the fall season is upon us, and if you’re like me the back-to-school group texts have been exploding.

There was a time when having a cell phone meant someone could get in touch with you. Now it feels like everyone has access to you all the time. And somewhere along the way, I think we started confusing the two.

Between my kids, my husband, school emails, sports schedules, work emails, Instagram DMs, brand texts, group chats and whatever app I’ve apparently downloaded because one of my children needed it for something, there are days when I feel like I have 200 people standing outside my front door gently knocking. And they all arrive in the same place, with the same little buzz, as if they are equally deserving of my immediate attention.

Your child needs to bring something to school tomorrow. Someone sent a meme to the group chat. A brand needs an answer. Dinner is at 7:30. Your credit card bill is ready. Your package has shipped. Your package is six stops away. Your package has been delivered. YOUR PACKAGE IS SITTING ON YOUR FRONT PORCH. Thank you. I got it.

And because everything comes directly to the tiny computer we carry around in our hands all day, there’s this strange feeling that we’re supposed to do something about all of it immediately. The text comes in. You see it. And now you know it’s there. That’s the part I find exhausting.

Because once you’ve seen something, even if you don’t answer it, it’s taking up a tiny bit of space in your brain. Need to respond to that. Need to sign that form. Need to answer that email. Need to order that thing. Need to send her that link. None of these things is particularly difficult. Most of them take less than a minute. But there are hundreds of them.

Some days I get to the end of the day feeling like I have been incredibly busy without being entirely sure what I actually did. I think that’s the thing that’s changed the most. It’s not that we didn’t have phones before. It’s that our phones weren’t everything.

There was a point when my phone was mostly a phone. Now it’s my office, my camera, my calendar, my inbox, my map, my wallet, my entertainment, my shopping cart, my family command center and, because of what I do for a living, a significant part of my actual job.

I love a lot of that. I love being able to text my husband. I love knowing where my kids are. I love FaceTiming my dad from anywhere. I love being able to order something I forgot while sitting in the school pickup line. And I genuinely love that my job allows me to connect with people through this little screen every day. I’m not anti-phone. I’m certainly not moving to a cabin in the woods.

But when your phone becomes everything, where exactly do you go to be nowhere?

Because there are almost no natural stopping points anymore. Waiting for an appointment used to mean waiting. Now it means answering three texts, checking your email, looking at Instagram and somehow ending up on a stranger’s page learning about the renovation of a house in Connecticut you didn’t know existed twelve minutes ago.

Sitting in the car while your kid is at practice used to just be sitting in the car. Now it’s an opportunity to “catch up.” There’s always something to catch up on. That’s the phrase, isn’t it? I’ll just catch up.

Except I don’t think you ever actually do.

There will always be another email. Another text. Another DM. Another notification. Another school form. Another thing you could be doing because the entire administrative infrastructure of your life is sitting six inches away from you at all times.

And the weirdest part is that we’ve started to treat availability almost like good manners. If someone texts, you should respond. If someone emails, you should respond. If someone DMs, you should respond. And preferably quickly, because everyone can see that everyone else is on their phone all the time.

We know you’re in there.

Which is probably why not responding can somehow feel worse than it used to. It’s hard to claim you “didn’t see” someone’s text when you’ve posted seven Instagram Stories since they sent it. Not that I’ve ever done that. Obviously.

But I think there’s a bigger cost to all this access that I’m only starting to really notice. Our attention is constantly being broken into tiny pieces.

You can be sitting at dinner with your family and see an email come through. You don’t even have to answer it. You’ve already thought about it. You can be talking to a friend and feel your phone buzz. You don’t look at it, but for half a second you wonder who it is. You can be watching a movie and pick up your phone to check one text, and twenty minutes later you’re reading reviews for a hotel you’re not even planning to visit.

None of these interruptions feels significant enough to matter, and I think that’s exactly why they do.

I’m starting to think uninterrupted attention might be one of the greatest luxuries we have left. Not the kind of attention we talk about online, the views, likes and followers. The other kind. Giving your full attention to one person, one conversation, one book, one dinner, or one completely mediocre television show that you actually watch from beginning to end instead of simultaneously scrolling through your phone.

Or, God forbid, absolutely nothing.

When was the last time you stood in line somewhere and just stood there? No phone. No podcast. No scrolling. Just you and your thoughts. Actually, never mind. That sounds horrible. But you know what I mean.

I don’t think what I’m craving is a life without technology. I don’t even think I want to be literally unreachable. I have kids. I want them to be able to reach me. I want my husband to be able to reach me. I like knowing that if something happens, the people I love can find me.

What I miss, or maybe what I’m realizing I need more of, is the feeling of being undisturbed. There’s a difference.

I want to be reachable without feeling perpetually available. I want to remember that just because someone can contact me instantly doesn’t mean they are entitled to an instant piece of my attention. Receiving a message is not the same thing as receiving an obligation.

I can answer later. I can let the phone ring. I can leave the email until tomorrow. I can drive somewhere without using those twenty minutes to “catch up.” I can sit at dinner and have absolutely no idea what is happening on Instagram for 90 entire minutes. The world will continue.

And I don’t think this requires a dramatic digital detox or some elaborate set of rules. I’m probably not putting my phone in a lockbox every night. I’m definitely not buying one of those minimalist phones that only calls five people and plays Snake.

I just want to create a few more moments where my attention isn’t available to whoever, or whatever, happens to demand it. Where the people I’m actually with get me instead of whatever happens to arrive on my screen. Where boredom is allowed, waiting is just waiting, and I don’t automatically fill every empty moment with something.

Maybe that’s the thing we’ve lost as our phones have gotten better and better at giving us everything: empty space.

I want to get better at deciding who and what gets access to me, and at remembering that not everything requires my immediate attention simply because it has the ability to ask for it. Not everything is of the same importance.

Maybe being unreachable isn’t rude. Maybe it’s a boundary we forgot we were allowed to have. And maybe it’s one of the incredibly important things to teach our kids as they grow up in a way we never could have imagined.

I would love to hear your thoughts (I just shared plenty of my own lol), because obviously this isn’t changing any time soon - this is the world we live in, and maybe we just need to share tips and hacks on how we can take a deep breath and manage it in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming. xx Emese