Spending the day with my two favorite college girls was like a spa day for my soul. I spent it looking at their faces. Not my phone’s.

I was in a social media blackout. For a week. And I didn’t die.

It was the lifestyle challenge of the week in the Whole Life Challenge. An eight-week online, community building habit-changing game that challenges you and your friends to make small, daily changes…their description. I would describe it as a game that urges you do all the things you know you should do (like eat better, exercise, sleep more), but don’t. While giving up things you shouldn’t eat, but do. Like bread. And frosting. And any combination of Taco Bell’s five ingredients.

Each week there is something new introduced that you should do. Or not do, like not waste hours on social media. I didn’t think I would be able to do it. And full transparency…it wasn’t a complete blackout. I oversee social media for my job. And it would be a lie to say I didn’t occasionally peek at my personal pages. But I didn’t post. Or favorite. Or retweet. Or snap.

I didn’t wish anybody a happy birthday (whose birthday I wasn’t already aware of without Facebook or LinkedIn reminding me). I ate some amazing meals and didn’t take a single picture of them. Which begs the question: with no photographic proof…did I really eat them?

I encountered some ridiculous people while traveling and crafted (what I thought were) hilarious status updates in my head. And that’s where they stayed.

It was a week of a complete lack of sharing and liking and commenting. And nobody missed it. Not a single text from a friend checking to make sure I had eaten, since they had no evidence of it. Not one complaint about a lack of a like from me on their kid’s homecoming picture. No one wondered my take on the latest presidential election political gaffe.

I was gone from social media…and no one noticed. Not that anyone should.

It was a really good reminder for me about evaluating what I decide to post. Does it interest or amuse anyone other than me? Does the post steer clear of the posts that annoy me to no end? The “look how awesome my life is!” post. Followed by the “everyone who doesn’t think like me is an idiot!” post. Not to be confused with the “cryptic, in desperate need of attention, so I’m just going to post a few words so you know non specifically that I’m in a bad place” post. And the posts that make me think “holy crap, I had no idea I tangentially knew people who were so racist/misogynist/homophobic, how fast can I hide them?” And of course the “thanks, Obama.”

I didn’t realize how mindlessly I was on social media. Like a smoker reaching for that first morning cigarette, I’d reach for my phone, hit snooze on its alarm and spend the next nine minutes scanning my email and immediately scrolling through Facebook and Instagram. So I deleted the apps off my phone. Hey, first step is admitting you have a problem, right?

And I did. I was spending more time on social media than I was actually being social.

My middle daughter came home from college this week. I timed my flight home to arrive at O’Hare just before hers. I hadn’t seen her in two months…the longest I have ever gone without seeing her in her 18 years on this planet. Not being on social media, I didn’t concern myself with getting a pic of us and thinking of a clever hashtag to include in the caption. I was focused on seeing her getting off the plane, and running to hug her. The happy cartoon-like tears came fast when that moment finally happened. A true “Love Actually” moment not captured with a phone, but erasable from my mind’s eye.

I treasured the 45-minute drive home from the airport, hearing all that was happening in her new home-away-from home life. I didn’t think about sharing any of that with any friends or followers. I only cared about the conversation with the one connection sitting next to me in the car. That connection was made that much better by disconnecting.

The challenge blackout is over. But the personal challenge to be in the moment and not face in the phone remains. I am determined to win it.