# Monday, the Apology Tour _Why I Don’t Text Back (and It’s Not You)_ If I haven’t **texted**, **called**, **emailed**, **liked** your post, or sent you a **Facebook** message for your birthday, **please accept my sincerest apologies!** You see, sometimes I read a text and think, _I’ll reply when I have time to write a grammar, spelling, and tone-appropriate response_ (henceforth to be known as a **_GST_**) or when I have time to **_think_** about my answer. But then, more texts arrive, and that message gets pushed further and further down the list. Email is not as casual as a text, so writing one takes **_effort_** especially when I want to write GST messages! With a **greeting**, **paragraphs**, **valediction** and even a **signature** (all in the most charitable tone of course) Don’t talk about **_calls_**. Since texting was invented, I’ve become severely allergic to the phone. Maybe it’s all the hours spent on hold listening to “calming” music, only to be interrupted by a robotic voice saying, “Your call is important to us. Please remain on the line.” Or maybe it’s the agony of navigating my pharmacy’s press-1-for-this-press-2-for-that hell. Or the continuous stream of spam calls with IRS schemes, or **worse**-legit calls from my insurance company. I now associate phone calls with torture. Coffee? Never! That would require things like **_showering_**, **_finding clothes that fit_**, and even worse-**_driving in ATX traffic._** How can a person be expected to climb Mt. Everest every week? Or worse, dig through the bottom of the clean laundry basket for something that’s does not look like it has been chewed on by a dog? I look at those strange creatures, "morning people", I believe they’re called and I simply cannot understand how they manage to be awake, wide-eyed (as opposed to sleepwalking into walls), fully made up (as opposed to wondering when they last changed their T-shirt), and conquering the world (as opposed to taking a two-hour nap in the middle of the day). Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the options, noise and the speed of life. I put my devices on DND and forget to turn it back. All of this might sound funny and it is, kind of but the struggle behind it isn’t always funny but humor is how I choose to cope. My health problems make everything **harder**, physically and mentally. Take **_brain fog_**, for example: I dusted off my planner and wrote “call/email" and wrote two people's names - only to come back 30 minutes later and have **no memory** of who those two people were. That is **not** normal, is it? Because it is for me. Anyway, this all started with an idea for a post called _“Procrastination is Perfectionism”_, as a follow-up to my _Perfectionism is Protection_ post. But instead, here I am writing-not quite an apology-but more of an **excuse**. How **_appropriate_**, no? The irony! So, in conclusion, because what reflection doesn’t include a conclusion, some days the struggle is real, and some days are more **_struggly_** than others. If you know me, this probably doesn’t surprise you: super-efficient me vs. super-struggling me, no middle. But in case ***you don’t know me by now*** (cue 80s ballad), my sincerest apologies. It’s not you. It’s _me._ **To be continued… eventually.** --- **Future ponderings:** - Has AI made us more perfectionist with its perfect yet bland prose? - The order of priorities: the beauty and wisdom of a Rule of Life. - How perfectionism is both a wound and a kind of pride - and how it all must be surrendered to God. ![[img-20250701-people.jpg]]