Mr. Man and I got into a fight a couple days ago — the sort of fight that makes you want to throw your phone into a canyon and at the same time crawl through it and ring someone’s neck. The next morning I woke up and hadn’t quite shaken the acrid feelings from the night before, and the sight of my phone only made it worse. So I turned the phone off for a whole day, for the first time maybe ever. And it fixed more than my fight hangover.

It was my day off first of all, so the dead screen served as a quiet shield against all the work emails I didn’t want to read. Hanging texts from flaky friends were instantly forgotten. Social media — I didn’t miss it, at all. No robocalls interrupted any part of my day. I didn’t hope for Mr. Man to text me something sweet, or anything for that matter. No disappointments, no expectations, no loss.

I also noticed an odd habit I had unwittingly taken to — creating a social media narrative in my mind for every little thing that comes up in my day. Some ghost of a reflex reached for my phone to take pictures of things I might share via text or post to a story, paired with an automatic and very lame caption to bring it home. I was pretty horrified that this little weed had grown inside the creative part of my brain, and apparently choked out anything valuable it used to produce.

I suddenly realized why I had been so stymied in my writing, and everything brain-related I attached to it. My original thoughts had turned into taglines that only survived with a horribly composed image. I’m no photographer. I’m not good at one liners. I had no business attempting any of this. So what was I doing?

This is how people stay connected now. Everything I know about my friends is mostly sustained via Instagram stories, and that’s not a bad thing. I love seeing my girlfriend’s baby growing every day, or my mother posting photos of her latest pieces in her jewelry store. It’s stupid easy to keep in touch with friends all over the country, while never worrying about their new mailing address. These are wonderful tools, and they don’t need the hype I’ve attributed to doing social media correctly. Instagram requires no more thought than a simple text message, and should be treated as such. My friends don’t need me to entertain them in order to keep them in my life.

I was thrilled, relieved, and not surprised (in a ‘this-totally-makes-sense’ sort of way) when I woke up in the middle of the night and started scribbling down writing topics in the notebook beside my bed. A full page of ideas filled itself up. Not all good, obviously, but better than blanks — which is what I’ve been shooting on repeat in my attempts at writing over the last few years.

I had thought I was losing that ability, that thoughtfulness, that love. It’s still in there, though. I just had to pull some weeds.