Phoneless

In a flurry of searching for my keys before coming to work I managed to leave my phone at home.  This is not something I do very often, (leave my phone at home, I often leave other things behind.)



I am surprised that, despite being 50+ years from my infancy, I still have a security blanket; even if, unlike Linus', my blanket is a phone.

I grew up with mobile phones being something I encountered only in science fiction. Telephone boxes flourished, mostly the red variety that sat on street corners like freshly hammered thumbs. No one would get you between places, you set off in the car or on foot in complete ignorance of the need to fetch some extra shopping or of changes to your day. It wasn't a problem back then, everybody understood. Urgency didn't attach itself to as many things as it does today. You had gone shopping and, unless by some fluke you happened to phone home or base if on business, whatever it was would be fetched on the next trip.

I guess the fire and forget nature of a man shopping meant that I was a little more thorough when it came to making a list. Now if I get that niggly feeling that there were more items than I had a note of I can just pick up the phone and check-in, mid-shop often.

At times I hear myself channeling my parents or grandparents when I slip into the "things were so much simpler in my day" mindset. We all do it at some point, I hesitate to say that it is a sign of old age, since I don't feel old.  There I go again, channeling my grandmother then. She always said in her 70s and beyond that she still felt like a young girl and not her three score years and ten. I would look at gran and think, "but you look so old! You must feel it really". Maybe in the aches of a morning, of the things she could no longer do or did much slower but she didn't let on to a young whippersnapper like me.

Back to that phone. I can try to describe the feeling that I had, which intensified the more I thought about it through the day, like looking into the abyss just before it looked back into me. If you have done this you will know what I am talking about. It was a clear indicator that I relied on my phone far more than I needed it. 90% of what I do with it is generated by me and not from calls or messages in, so I don't need it by my side.

I need to take some phone breaks, leave the tech at home and try going it alone some days.