All These Places

I don’t know how it happened but it appears that I have turned in to the type of person who requires an unlimited texting plan on my cell phone.  Let’s keep in mind my ripe old age of 33.  When I was in high school, cell phones were just coming into existence.  My father had one that came in a bag, a receiver attached to a plastic box that had to be plugged into a car’s cigarette lighter.  He handed it to me like a suitcase whenever I went on any road trips.  In college, my phone weighed close to five pounds and was to be used for emergencies only.  And I had roaming…remember roaming?

                So things have changed…this I know in so many ways.  And I now have a phone that allows me to communicate in a multitude of ways—e-mailing, Facebooking, texting and the ever-essential actual calling.  It’s even got this cool feature that allows me to check my usage of said phone.  I was shocked the other day to see that I was about to exceed my 1,000 texts/month plan at only about a third of the way through my billing cycle.  Who am I?? I thought to myself.

                I gave myself a few days to be a curmudgeonly 33-year-old.   I bemoaned the idea of what technology has done to our abilities to communicate to each other as human beings.  When was the last time that you wrote someone an actual letter?  What’s wrong with just picking up the phone and calling someone?  Why on earth would you ever need to send and receive more than 1,000 texts a month?

                Then, today, I started thinking about the last two weeks of mine.  They’ve been tough.  And the people around me are aware of that.  So they send texts saying that they are thinking of me, that they love me, that I will get through this and come out stronger on the other end.  And with each ping of the phone letting me know that a message has been received, pain is slowly but surely alleviated.

                We lead busy lives and a phone call isn’t always possible.  Some people find it hard to speak words of comfort.  And so they send a written message over the lines.  It’s just a way to say “I’m here, though I’m not right beside you, I am here, you are in my thoughts, your pain is my pain and your life is important to me.”

                And that, my friends, is a gift that technology has given us.  Because without it, who knows how many phones would go unringing, how many thoughts left unsaid, how many friendships drifted away due to time and distance.  Now, with the tap of fingers, we can give a friend a quick laugh on their Monday workday.  We can provide comfort in times when nothing else can be done.  We can let someone know that we are thinking of them, just because, and give them the lift knowing that they are being thought of.