My Phone, My Life

The telephone. Since my adolescent years, it has been both friend and foe, most particularly when it comes to that dreaded task of calling a boy. I have always hated calling boys. And even as the boys have grown into men (well, age wise at least!), part of me is still that young girl that hates calling boys.

Despite the fact that the twelve year old me, and even the twenty year old me, hated calling boys, I still had a process. In the days of the landline phone, I’d press the first few numbers with my self-painted, deep purple nails and hang up. Breathe. Dial five digits. Hang up. What if? I’d question my motives, my intentions. Finally, I’d get to the last digit, and again, quickly click the phone off before I heard a dial tone. I’d do some type of confidence boosting words of affirmation, dial all the way through, and wait. Will he answer? Leave a message or not.

As I grew into womanhood, I traded my landline for a cell phone and my self-painting for my standard, pale pink mani at the salon. And even though now is an age of text messages, instant messages, and other similar forms of messages, I’m still old fashioned. I’m a calling girl. I like to call and I like receive calls. Not that I need long conversations, but I like to know that the effort is there. With this new technology of today, and the ability to have numbers stored in cell phones, gone are the days of dial-hang up-and-dial-again. That, and with age and wisdom, all I need now to call is one confidence booster and a few sips of wine to hit send.

Now is also different when it comes to the end of the road, no matter how short it may have been. Then, you had to train your brain to forget the 10 digits making up the number you had so deeply engrained in your brain. Then, you couldn’t just hit delete and eliminate existence. So this elimination has its own process.

Whether he is someone who proves himself to be crazy or someone who just fizzles out of my life, there comes a time when he needs to be deleted from my phone. When he’s reached his expiration date. As I scroll down to his name and I hit “Options,” then “Erase.” Then it asks, are you sure? In most cases, I am for sure and gone is the number and with it the individual. But some are harder to let go than others. Crazy guy. No problem. The guy who consumed much of my energy during my college days, much more difficult. Was I sure? Was I ready to rid my life of him forever? Sure he had not been the man I needed him to be and I knew it was in my best interest to let him go, but was I sure? Attached to him were so many more memories. So many more feelings. Eventually, I was sure, and then, he was gone. But all situations aren’t black and white. There are those guys in the gray area in the middle. I know I am over him and no longer have use for him in my phone. What I really want is to let him know that! That I am over him. That I am taking him out of my mind, out of my phone, out of my life!

However, my telephone has been my friend and brought me joy. There are those initial phone calls that have lasted for hours. Those numbers I was eager to type in and hit “Save.” Where my telephone shall take me in the future I don’t know, but I’m hoping for the one I’ll love to call and the number I’ll never want to forget.