A PARTING NOTE It was one fateful morning a few days ago when she decided to leave me. It was sudden. I did not see it coming. I did not anticipate it.
She was important to me. She was with me in my moments of happiness and sadness. She stood by me in testing times and in the moments of glory. She would see to it that I was never alone, left out or sad. She would do everything for me in her limits - sometimes right from waking me up, to help me organize myself, to help me reach my friends. She would entertain me when I was bored. I would feel connected when she is with me. I know she wasn’t everything for me but still she meant a lot in my life. She decided to come into my life more than a year ago - very abruptly one day. And she left abruptly too. At least I knew her coming when she came but her going was something I was not ready for; not prepared for.
Yes, I lost my cell phone! That meant to me - no calls, no radio on the move, no alarm clock, no organizer, no chess games when I am bored and no sms to kill time. The worst part - I lost my contacts - something I always feared and was always paranoid about.
But luckily I could take it without any anxiety or tension. I think I have this gift - to keep my cool and work things out easily in situations of real trouble. And that’s a little strange because many times I fail to tackle very ordinary situations and screw things up.
This happened last week when I was out of town to visit my folks. And when I was there, I realized there was no phone in the pocket. Fine, I told myself, there it goes. Next natural step was to call my number and hope it was picked up by a Good Samaritan. It rang and no one picked up. Next time I rang up again, it said 'out of reach', and it was obvious that the sim card is removed and someone else is having a good time with my phone. Well, that was it, I will have to forget about it. And then I announce to my dad - 'looks like I lost my phone'
Dad: Oh! No!! Now what?!!
By this time, I was now completely aware of the 'now what' part. I was already working out on strategy for rebuilding the contact list, budgeting for a new phone etc etc, and had calculated that out of 100 odd names in my contacts, I can re-acquire most, if not all of them. I was least worried about the hand set per se.
Me: Ummm… well, now what? I guess I lost my phone. And that’s about it.
Dad: But, what do we do now? What are you going to do? About your contacts and info you would have in the phone? What about tha handset....(many more questions).
He was obviously upset. Soon came my mom who added a little more to it.
Me: I guess I will try to trace back all the places where I have been to. If I don’t find it, looks like I will have to get a new phone and keep moving. That’s about it. I think now that it has happened, we should not worry too much about it(very philosophical huh? ;) ).
They were obviously not very happy or convinced about my logic(who would be?) but at least seemed to realize that there is no point getting upset too much. So things ended there.
I am still working on the 'replacement' for ‘her’.
