My Cellphone Sends Postcards From Its Vacation In The Closet

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My phone said to me the other day, “Mom, I want to go on vacation.”

What a great idea, I thought.

“Honey, I love it. Let’s figure out where we want to go.”

“No, Mom. I want to go on vacation without you.”

What?

To say I bawled my eyes out of their sockets would be an understatement. To say I flooded my house with salty tears wouldn’t do my sorrow justice. To say — never mind, you get it.

Had we really reached this point? Had my sweet Pixel 6 smartphone child grown up without me? I wiped away my tears, got up off the ground, and asked in the gentlest voice I could muster, “But, darling, how can you go on vacation without a credit card?”

“Mom,” it said, incredulous, “I am a credit card.”

Oh, that kid. I’ve taught it so well.

I know this is a common life transition — letting go, allowing my smartphone to branch out on its own, trusting it has what it needs. Knowing I’ll be fine with an empty nest. So many questions flooded my mind. Will my precious Bluetooth-touchscreen Android baby be safe without me? Will I be able to fill my time when it’s gone? How will I survive not having it by my side all day? The loneliness alone could kill me.

But you do what a good mother does — you let your kids live their own lives.

“Well, dear, where will you go?” I asked, trembling to think of my innocent Google 5Ger in the great, big, wild world all by itself.

“Mom,” it said, looking me in the eyes, “I want to go to the kitchen counter, next to the Keurig machine, and lay there for two hours in the sun — or fluorescent lighting, whichever.”

“Two hours?!!”

I lost it, but I quickly regained composure.

“Ahem. Two hours? Don’t you think that’s a little long to be gone next to the coffee machine?”

“Other parents let their phone kids go for longer. It’s not a big deal.”

This was true. I’d heard of other parents allowing their cell phone children on solo vacations to the kitchen. It was a thing, apparently. I’d also heard good things about it — something to the effect that it’s peaceful when the kids leave. But are these the same people who say meditation is good for you?

Ah well. To the kitchen counter. I helped my child get ready. We packed its charger. I waved goodbye. It flashed me a peace sign, turned, and walked off into the sunset. I watched until my little offshoot was out of sight, took a deep breath, and looked around me.

Here it was — my life. It was quiet, but not too quiet. Or maybe it was completely silent, but the silence sounded rather lovely. It was also serene, uncluttered by extra filler nothingburgers. It was pristine the way life would be if we didn’t have insistent fluff-pokes at our brains all day.

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I’m reading Oliver Burkeman’s book, Four Thousand Weeks. It presents a stunning concept even though it surely isn’t the first time the idea has been uttered. His argument is that in this one life we not only have a tiny number of things that we’ll ever be able to accomplish, but on the flip side, there is most of everything a human could ever opt to do that we’ll never experience. This means curation of our time is essential for living out our brief bit of time optimally.

The alternative is to fret our entire adult lives that we’ve not done enough because we’re oblivious that we’ll never be able to tackle our faulty version of “enough”. Or, that we’re not doing what we want to do because we’re so busy trying to finish the stuff we don’t truly want to do so we can make time for the important stuff — which often never comes.

Math is so powerful for me. When you state the obvious — teeny time, huge options — my jaw drops, and I get it.

Which is why I was okay with letting my phone baby go on vacation without me. I asked myself, is luxuriating on Google News, Slack, Facebook, Medium, Chrome homepage, and NYT puzzle app how I want to spend the 1400 weeks — give or take — I have left?

Do I really need to nurture these things in my beloved phone?

I don’t. I can let it do its thing, and then enjoy our time together when it returns from its gallivanting. It’s been several weeks now that my phone has been a world traveler. It’s an expert on the Keurig machine. It knows how to indulge itself under the basil plant, lying there basking in the dead leaves dropping gently around it. It waxes poetic about the simple pleasures of my closet.

Am I happy for my wireless one? Without question.

But I’m happier for myself.

I’ve discovered I’m fine without my 5G bambino. In fact, I rather like it when it’s not around. Does that make me a bad mother? I don’t need it by my side 24/7. When I sleep, I’m fine knowing it’s fine next to my earrings. When I work, I have access to all I need on my laptop. I’ll admit, it’s nice to be able to work blissfully unpoked by my child’s incessant beeps about my fantasy football league’s obsessive discussions. I can win the championship without the beeps. And I have.

Life carries on, which is crazy to say because the definition of life is not “cell phone.” Now when my young smartphone goes for a spa weekend with its friends, I have my own spa weekend doing the things I truly want to do with my rare time. I’ve let go, and you know what? It wasn’t that hard.

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Be well, friends.