When Is a Phone More Than a Phone?

I am sorry to be such a coward leaving you this way but I am leaving you and I am leaving the state.

That is the text I received on the above phone in July of 2009.   Until today, it has remained my phone.  Every time I’ve used  it, the feeling of its curved case in my hands is a visceral reminder of the several days I spent grasping its cold body after receiving the text.  That phone, the deliverer of the death sentence of my marriage, was the only possible connection I had to my former life.  It was my executioner and my security blanket in one. It has overstayed its welcome in my life.  As of today, it is retired from its duties.

I was nervous about the process of opening a new account; I still never know what will come up from my past.  It was comforting to have a gentle salesperson who had also dealt with an ex’s financial betrayal.  The look on her face told me she didn’t judge me and she understood.

My new phone is so much more than a phone.  It already contains an image of my current beau and I after we completed a tough race (Tough Mudder, to be exact).  It symbolizes freedom and connection with new technology (you can see that my old phone wasn’t exactly cutting edge!).  It will allow me to more effciently pursue some of my projects and dreams.  Most importantly, at least to me, is the fact that it stores no memories, its shape is virgin to my hand.

Today I have severed an important connection to my past.  The phone that signaled the end of one life has been replaced by one that symbolizes the start of a new.