Transitions

The holiday season is a time to remember and honor loved ones in our lives, as we sit around and sip our wassail and complain about contemporary Christmas music. (What's wrong with the old carols? Answer me that.) This year I have a transition in my life that made me stop and dab at my watering eyes for a moment as I reached for another cup of wassail.

I have a new phone.

While I love my new phone (so shiny! so fast! so HUGE!) I need to pause and pay tribute to the phone it replaced, my good ol' iPhone 4. I loved that phone, which in 2010 I was sure was going to transform me into a veritable paragon of efficiency. It would organize my calendar and I would no longer double-book my work and personal schedules! It would keep all my contacts in the same place and I would no longer have to call Husband to get an address for one of the Boys! It would be such a fine camera that I would no longer have to carry around my trusty point-and-shoot so that I could document my food!

And for six years, it sort of did all of those things. I mean, it wasn't a miracle machine and sadly, double-booking seems to be my super power so it did not prevent this. But it was reliable, sync-ed with my iPad and work addresses, and was right there when I needed to shoot a picture (lunch, anyone?) so I was happy.

But then my trusty iPhone 4 looked around at all the new generations of phones, several of which had come and gone while I continued to use it, and it just pretty much gave up. Update to the latest operating system? Too complicated.  Sync with my Fitbit? Nope, can't do that either. How about playing some music? Sorry, but even that was beyond this phone's capabilities because all those sandwich pictures crowded off the music. 

So it was time to trade in the old model for a new one, and I do love the new version now that I'm getting used to bending my stubby thumbs around its enormous case. It's fast and shiny and has enough storage space that I can listen to music while I schedule a meeting with my boss at the exact same time I already have an appointment to have my teeth cleaned.

We made a lot of memories together, though, this old phone and I. It was the phone I was using when Boy#4 had his bike wreck two states away, and Boy#1 sent me text updates from the emergency room followed by photos of my wrecked baby's face. Shudder. It's the one that carried me though the whole transition to empty nesting, and kept in touch with my sons to reassure me life was fine--great, even--when the nest was full and would continue to be fine--great, even--when they weren't living at home.

Good-bye, old phone. I will miss you.

Hmmm. I believe this explains why I should never get a pet.