Go Outside

     It's an absolutely gorgeous day outside. It's been absolutely gorgeous this whole week, and I think I've been outside for about twenty minutes in all in the past four days, and that's literally all been to get in and out of my car a few times to go places where I could be inside again. That's something I've realized as a teenager. When you're a kid, and you're bored, your parents tell you to go outside. They don't tell you what to do once you get out there. They're smart enough to know that you'll figure it out by sheer necessity. My brother and I used to play badminton over the fence, or dig up this one little area of our yard that we swore was a tunnel leading to an underground bunker. Heck sometimes we'd just sit out behind the shed and play with grass and examine our dead pets' graves. Now that I'm a teen, the stuff I do when I get bored all takes place inside and usually has to do with my phone. I swore to myself that I would not be one of those girls who is obsessed with her iPhone, and in a sense, I'm not. I rarely take my phone with me out in public because I think that's really rude. But when I'm at home, it's a completely different story. I guess I don't feel the need to not be rude to my own family? But that's not even it. I try not to use my phone in front of even my family members because I like to give them my full attention when I'm around them. But all that means is that I hole up in my room for hours on end so that they don't have to see me tapping away at a screen. It's sad really. I guess my imagination has just eroded over time. I'd like to say that I want to reinstate the "Go outside" principle when I get bored, but the truth is I don't have enough of an imagination for that to help me stop being bored.
     I just realized that what I said about going outside a total of twenty minutes was a lie. I went outside for about an hour and a half two days ago. I sat on my back step, with my phone, because the wifi still reaches that far. Heaven forbid I go any further, because then I couldn't use my phone. I'm so pathetic. I think that the next time I'm eligible for an update, I might go back to a non-smart phone. But then again, I say that now, and when the time comes I'll make up a ton of excuses for why that's simply not practical. I don't know how to reverse the cycle. I hope it's just a phase and I'll grow out of it. But I really truly want to go outside and just figure out what to do. Maybe I'll try that later.

-VaughnDL