By Jake Zabski
I think it’s safe to assume that everyone has had enough of this school year, either reasons related to Covid or just overall fatigue from numerous classes and work. I know that I’ve had enough, but I didn’t really realize how badly I’ve had enough up until a recent little day trip of mine. If you haven’t realized from my previous articles, I love to travel and adventure around when I can. This recent trip was a solo adventure out to the Outer Cape, one of my absolute favorite places in the entire world. Cape Cod for me will always be my soul’s home it seems, and I’ve pretty much always felt that it is my second home since I’ve spent so much time there as a little kid up until now. This particular trip made me realize that sometimes not only do we not realize we need a break until it is right under our nose, but also how important it is to just disconnect from our surroundings for a little.
At this particular point in the semester, most of my heavy work is done. I worked myself the last few weeks to get my final assignments done ahead of schedule to guarantee that my last few days and weekend at school would be as enjoyable as possible to ring out the end of my junior year and hopefully my last year of having to deal with Covid in a college environment. I decided to treat myself to one day off where I could just relax with absolutely no worries about anything.
Of course, I picked the Cape to travel too on my day off as I knew this was where I would feel the most at peace. It’s weird, the day started off kind of tricky. It was pretty cloudy, and there seemed to be construction almost every mile on my trip down and I won’t lie and say that as soon as I got onto 495 I considered turning around instead of sitting in traffic, but nonetheless I continued on my journey. I’m grateful that I didn’t because this day trip turned out to seriously be one of the best trips I’ve taken this entire year, as well as being extremely beneficial for my mental health.
I made my way up to one of my favorite beaches, Marconi Beach, and for whatever reason it seemed like the gods blessed the beach that day as I immediately showed up and it reminded me of a nice summer beach day. Thankfully, I carry an emergency beach bag in my car for these situations and I geared up to make my way down the dunes to the beach. Since it’s the off season, there was barely anyone there and I was able to for once enjoy the beach without crowds of people around me. It’s weird for me to even imagine being at the Cape for a beach day first of all in April, let alone going to the beach and having nobody else there. It was so peaceful to just sit on my blanket and watch and listen to the waves crashing and admiring the big blue horizon. I also saw a few seals of course, one of my favorite activities on the Outer Cape, and I swear I saw a whale spout out in the distance but who really knows!
One of the beauties of the Outer Cape is that there is no cell reception. Once you are on the beach, you are immediately disconnected. Something that I am not proud of over the last few weeks has been watching my screen time report increase every week, and I feel like I spend so much time staring at my phone and for no reason. I really don’t get that many notifications a day to justify my screen usage, and it’s also not great for my already horrible eyesight. I think that by forcing myself to disconnect, it made me reconnect with the world around me. The only thing I connected with was nature, not what was going on back at school or in my digital world. This for me was the best part of this trip as I spent a lot of time reflecting on life, and looking forward as well to the upcoming summer.
I found that by disconnecting, as well as putting my head and my heart’s needs first, I was able to have an amazing day off surrounded by the things I love. By allowing myself to disconnect, I was able to enter a world that is untouched by all the technology and media around us. It’s ironic coming from someone who’s majoring in that field, but I’ve found that while media can be amazing it can also be our downfall. I think something to keep in mind is learning and understanding when it’s time to disconnect from our digital world. Take a walk and don’t take your phone with you or keep it on silent. Instead of being on your phone in your Zoom class (we all do it there’s no way to hide it), focus instead on maybe something creatively that you do like doodling or journaling. There are so many ways that we can disconnect and root ourselves somewhere without technology, and it’s important once in a while to unplug, unwind, and go to our happy places to keep ourselves and our mental health in check amidst our digital world.
Check out the view from the dunes at Nauset Light Beach!
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