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How did I get so dumb without my smart phone?

Good morning to you!

Twenty-four hours ago as I type this, I was running around the house gathering my wits and my travel mug of coffee and doing last minute things to head out the door and make the 2 plus hour trip to see this gem…

We had a day date and with tight schedules on her calendar and mine, I had hoped to get an earlier start…but well…it’s me so…delays were inevitable.

But I was feeling pretty good about the window of late I was leaving in as I made my way through the backroads toward the interstate.

Until I was almost to the entrance ramp and decided to charge my phone as I drove.

Only to discover in all my packing up to leave, my phone was still back home.

I realize there was a day when we did not have phones and we made trips all over the world without knowing what politicians and athletes were thinking about in 280 words or less every two seconds.

We didn’t know if someone needed to get a hold of us until we got home and checked the answering machine, and I even remember a time before there was that recorder of information available.

Sometimes we had to wait until….gasp…we saw someone to tell them what we  were thinking or needing.

However; this is not such a time.

Not at all.

And what happened next was a carefully executed u-turn and a slightly stress-filled return trip home while I gave myself the usual lecture about running late, being forgetful…yada…it plays on a loop so I won’t bore you with it here.

I also did one of my “what-if” nightmare obsessive role plays of the scenario if I had not realized I forgot it until the turnaround was too late to make up for the lost time.

This one had my blood pressure soaring far above it’s usual comatose numbers as I envisioned things like …. me trying to navigate the traffic and even standing a chance of finding her house because I am the WORST big city nervous driver on the planet and I have absolutely no sense of direction let alone recall of how to get to places I have been to hundreds of times.

I also realized that pay phones are probably non-existent so where does one make a call if one does not have one’s phone with one?

I was basically hyperventilating playing out in my mind the image of begging strangers to use their cell phone so I could call Sarah from some truck stop at some exit and then try to copy her directions onto the back of a receipt so I could get to her.

All that to say I am a bit freaked out today at how much I rely on this phone.

It often serves as my clock, calendar, notebook of to do’s, my communication method with friends and family, map, phone book, photo album, email, newspaper, encyclopedia/dictionary, entertainment when I have a long wait and even keeps track of how many steps I have taken in a day.

Oh my…I may need to excuse myself and breathe into a paper bag just thinking of it.

Which is why I think setting it aside intentionally a certain amount of time each day is not only healthy but necessary.

Ok. Now you probably need a paper bag.

Take your time and consider how much of your life is on your phone.

I think it is a wake up call that I might regain some skills like map reading, memorizing directions (ouch) and actually taking time to talk to people face to face.

That’s what I got out of it anyway.

So  now it’s off to another late start to my day..and I hope you have a blessed one <3

 

 

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