Laptops as Security Blankets

I will speak this into existence for this summer, which truthfully doesn't quite feel like a summer. My goal: to go on vacation, and not bring my laptop.

Whew. I am starting to get anxious just thinking about not bringing my laptop. I have a tablet, with a keyboard, which I know I'll bring with me. But even so, the idea of NOT BRINGING my laptop, feels so very much different. 

My friend Debbie, who I met while at UCLA, used to complain about me (in a loving, joking way) because no matter where we went to explore on the weekends, I'd always bring my laptop. Cute cafes, amazing locations, delicious brunch spaces (all pre-pandemic), always included my metaphorical but actually quite literal, physical baggage that is my laptop. For many of those times, I actually never wound up opening it. (And Debbie would, like a true friend, tease me about why I hauled it around LA in the first place). Even during multi-day vacations, I'd really not spend a lot of time using it— usually just answering emails which (1) I shouldn't have been doing anyways, but also (2) could easily do on my phone.

​And yet, the idea of not taking my laptop, feels like a commitment I'm not quite ready to make: a commitment to not be so tied to my work. To be clear, I am certainly not making the argument that people who bring their laptops everywhere have bad work-life harmony; (thank you Dr. Fred Bonner II for that reframe from work-life balance). Instead, as I'm slowly starting to travel (i.e., see my family for the first time), I'm wondering what my life might be like where I just... don't take my laptop. I'll still be able to do work off my tablet of course, and my parents have computers for me to use too in case I really need it. So I am thinking, and wondering about this idea, this vision, this tantilizing dream of not bringing my laptop... that feels like something that maybe I can actually try for this summer and commit to taking some time off. 

​

---