03.27.08: Without the leash

Yesterday afternoon my phone died. For a moment I felt this horror, this anxiety, this fear of not being connected to the whole world at any given moment. I felt… I felt… Well actually all of the sudden I felt free.

A couple years ago, when I had just returned from a one-year stint in Europe, I returned home sans leash. It was a couple weeks before I pulled together the funds to get a new phone, and those weeks were some of the freest of my life. I’d lived abroad and been absolutely free from everyone. If I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t respond to emails or call home. Maybe this was wrong and maybe I worried people, but at the time I wasn’t really thinking about it.

At home and cell free I would make plans with people in advance, they wouldn’t be able to contact the minute of so the likelihood of them actually showing up was much greater. But then after a few weeks I caved and got a phone. I proverbially waved my independence adieu.

Years later I’ve stumbled again on this desire to be free of the leash. My phone died and yes for a moment I felt that fear. But you know what it was okay.

The phone was off and I didn’t worry about it. I went about my day. I laid in bed and read, I enjoyed silence. It was savory.

Savory until I checked my voice mail to hear seven frantic messages from my friends and family, “Where the hell are you?” Silly me, I was going about my day thinking nothing about worrying people, but nevertheless I had. I started to think about this idea of instant communication. (This really isn’t a unique thought, but one that should be touched upon every now and then.) Before the cell phone, or the Internet, or even the landline, communication was far from instant. We wrote and mailed letters that sometimes never even arrived. There was nothing instant about it. Maybe it was frustrating at times, but there had to of been a lovely freedom about it.

I don’t know which is better. I love my cell phone. We have a great relationship, but sometimes we do fight. And sometimes I want to throw it out of my car window. I know that I own it, but sometimes I feel like it owns me.