The Pause

Do I need to know or is that anxiety punching my chest? Plus what I'm reading and eating in January.

Hey friend,

How do I entertain my kids on long school holidays?

What is a subchorionic haemorrhage?

When do you find out you are having twins? 

These are three questions I would normally type into Google but recently texted to friends instead. I only resorted to this form of communication after I deleted Gmail and the DuckDuckGo internet browser from my phone. After digging for some technical instructions on disabling Apple’s Safari and Mail apps, they are gone too. I am getting acquainted with The Pause.

I feel the need to add ten million disclaimers here, all variations on “I’m not insane,” and “I am not buying a bunker in the woods.” I’ve been toying with this step for a while, putting my toes in the water to delete the apps for a week here and there. I’ve written about getting off social media, trying to prioritise connection time with my kids, and not consuming a lot of news content. Those things all hold true. But the icky thing underneath all of this? 

I still spent a lot of time on my phone. 

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

I got my first phone when I was around 13 years old. The details are hazy. But what I do remember was it was a blue Nokia 3310. I threw the phone across the school oval where it crested over the sun and landed unharmed on the grass. Texting was onerous. It made phone calls. I could play snake. I don’t remember spending a lot of time on my phone, even after I upgraded to a pink Motorola flip phone. I do remember drawing all over my notebooks in class, reading books under my desk, and gazing out the window, lost in my own thoughts while vital learning was going on.

I bought my first smartphone when I was 21 years old. My boyfriend at the time had one. I was offended by how long he spent on it, scrolling in social situations. But I went ahead and bought one–it did seem helpful. For years I thought social media was the reason I wasted so much time on my phone. I had to carve the apps out of my heart with a butcher's knife. But all I did was cut off the shark’s dorsal fin. There were still rows of teeth under the waves. 

Recently, I noticed I spend a lot of time asking Google questions and checking my emails, just to have something to check. One night, bewailing my lack of self-control to my husband, I fretted, “I am ruining my children for life,” and “How will they ever be able to use technology sensibly if I can’t do it? I have a fully developed prefrontal cortex and they won’t have one until they are 25 years old!” ¹

Zac devised a surprisingly simple experiment. Delete email and the internet off my phone and only check them on my laptop, but check them as much as I want. This is how I ended up with the severe scheme I was telling you about earlier, the one that makes me feel the need to promise a bunker is not next. 

No email or internet browser on my phone was harder than I thought. I ended up with a Google Doc enchantingly titled, “Things I Want to Google.” When the urge to know bubbled up, I paused, wrote it in the Google Doc, and moved on with my day. But something interesting happened. By the time I turned on my laptop and tethered it to the hotspot, I scrolled through the list to find the burning need to know had disappeared. The simple act of pausing helped me discern whether I actually needed to know or if it was anxiety howling, picking up my heart, and throwing it at my ribcage. 

A similar thing happened a few years back. My husband and I used to watch TV together almost every night, except that we weren’t watching it. We were scrolling our phones at the same time. We were definitely not talking to each other. When Zac converted our Little Shed in the backyard from a classic shed into a room with electricity and air-con and a bed, he moved the TV out there too. I started to pause, “I don’t want to go outside tonight, it’s too cold to keep coming back to check on the kids,” or “What if the kids cry and they don’t know where I am?”

I don’t watch TV at night-time now thanks to The Pause. 

I started voice texting last year, after hearing the

Coffee + Crumbs

team rave about Voxer for years (although I will forever and ever be Team WhatsApp). It is a gift. I am so grateful for the technology which allows me to connect with my friends in depth. When you have small children, in-person conversations are frequently interrupted. But if you have been sending voice texts back and forth while you walk to school or cook dinner, you keep making small deposits. 

An unexpected silver lining of not having an internet browser on my phone is The Pause. Before, if I felt uncomfortable about a decision, I would cast my anxieties upon the algorithm. I would scroll and scroll and scroll, convinced if I learned enough, I would not feel anxious anymore. What happened is the more information I consumed, the sheer amount of contradictory information, the more overwhelmed I became.

But with The Pause? I am forced to sit with discomfort. I humble myself to ask a friend. Unlike Google, my friend who had twins said, “What makes you think you are having twins?”

My nurse friend defined subchorionic haemorrhages and explained the risks. Then she said, “I had a subchorionic haemorrhage too. Most of the time they go away.”

My friends in my Bible study group chat inundated me with free and cheap ideas to entertain my kids on the holidays.

Talking to a friend prompts a deeper connection because they can see my fears and foibles. Friends cut to the heart of the question and force me to face my anxiety. My pride prefers me to Google. The screen’s hollow response saves me from the discomfort of vulnerability. No one has to know my problems. I can fix it myself. But this is a lie. Friends come alongside me in a way Google never could. My life is richer and more beautiful for the small moments of connection throughout my day.

I’m Loving 

I was obsessed with Zach Bryan’s music in 2023. This gives me goosebumps. 

I don’t know how to keep you safe beyond the days that I can hold you in my arms—who will keep watch over us when we wake up in the night, and I, attuned to your cry, set about the work of comforting your endless wanting to be close.

Allie King’s essay about not trusting your body… I could feel my heart in my chest as I read. 

Britt B

sent me this fascinating serialised memoir of a woman who experienced a high-control marriage and religious abuse.

Check out Jessica Garrett’s writing on sobriety, motherhood, and faith at

a sober believer

. I love her honesty and dependence on the Lord. 

In a similar vein, how do we make art out of hard things?

I inhaled this nearly 1000 page doorstop in the hazy time between Christmas and New Years when I was struck down by some nasty lurgy. It was glorious! An utter page turner. If the length puts you off, there is also a great mini-series for each book by the BBC. 

We’ve been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton with our boys before bed. They are as lovely as I remember. 

If you are sending kids back to school next month, these name tag labels are LIFE SAVING. Just don’t bother with the shoe ones, they fall out. But everything else is amazing. The stickers lasted two years on lunch boxes going through the dishwasher daily and are still going strong. 

I haven’t done much proper cooking in December. I haven’t had the brain space for new recipes, but I have been enjoying a fried egg with baked beans for breakfast. Heinz for the win. 

In our garden this month, we have tomatoes and cucumbers, figs, limes, jalapeno chillies, and Kalamata olives. I’ve been eating the figs straight off the tree 🤤

We’ve pickled the jalapenos and made lime cordial, but I am genuinely stuck on how to do the olives. It’s taken five years for the trees to bear fruit. 

Do you have a method? Are you team salty water with no changing the water, team salty water with changes, or another method entirely? I have five trees’ worth. Send help! 

In Case You Missed It 

I had my first ever article published somewhere other than Part Time Poets and The Sunday Morning Snuggle. I wrote about my favourite books this year on The Gospel Coalition Australia. 

And here is the Holiday Issue of Part-Time Poets. We normally share poems every month, but we did something special in December 💛

Bonus Holiday Issue

Thanks for reading! Tell me in the comments:

1. Do you have a method for Kalamata olives?

2. What are your number one going back to school tips / product recommendations? I have Smash stainless steel lunch boxes that are going strong but the lids break and you can’t buy just the lids online.

3. Do you have any habits in place to help you pause? 

4. What do you do to intentionally cultivate depth in your friendships?

1. Yes, I am a complete nerd, I know.