An Interesting Irony

Well, that’s a title that could lead us anywhere, is it not? Let’s see, there are so many paths I could take. I’ll just tell you where I was going with this:

Cell phones. Good grief, how they have changed our lives – particularly the ‘smart phone’ variety. It really is staggering to contemplate just how much power we hold in our hands every day.

It is weird to think back on the first big huge bulky clunky contraptions that almost needed to be carried with two hands, in big cases, that were incredibly heavy and unwieldy. And the reception? Awful. But if you could afford one of those bad boys, you were cutting edge.

Their First Appearance

Regular cell phones – i.e., ‘flip phones’ and the like, were certainly revolutionary. It was so great to be able to talk to Karl and Maximus when they went off to college and not have to call a pay phone in the hallway of their dorms, or even call a landline in their rooms, although those were still options.

Come to think of it, I may be thinking back to my first year or two in college when I reference pay phones in the hallway of the dorm. Yes…Bigler Hall at Penn State. I don’t know. My memory may be confused. If any of my peeps from back then (Bregettes?) are reading this, perhaps they can refresh my recollection.

Anyway. The actual point I wanted to make tonight had to do with how much our cell phones – and texting in particular – have changed the way we stay in touch with each other, particularly parents and children – and how that has an impact much deeper and wider than just the superficial contact.

My kids are all adults now. With few exceptions it is rare that if I send a text, I do not receive a response. Of course, that’s if it is a text that obviously is requesting or requiring an immediate response.

I rarely request or require an immediate response. But the mere fact that I have the knowledge in the back of my mind that if I really needed them, I could reach them changes my life.

The Blessing and Curse of Instant Access

Having been an exchange student in Sweden back in ’76-’77, I remember all too vividly how different telephonic communication was back then. Wow. It was incredibly special to be able to make a phone call overseas. They were expensive, so it was a very rare treat to be able to hear my mother’s voice.

And yet, that inability to just pick up the phone and communicate instantaneously played a huge role in promoting resilience – and not just on my part as a 17 year old, either. It had to have fostered an amazing amount of trust and fortitude on the part of my parents, too – particularly my mother, as we enjoyed each other’s company and were close. What can she (they, to be fair) possibly have been thinking, sending their 17 year old daughter off to Sweden for a year?

Probably at least part of my love for writing is rooted in the prolific letter-writing I engaged in to keep the thread of energetic connection to my mother intact. And she was great about corresponding with me, too. I was homesick – no doubt about it – but the letters kept me connected. Kept us connected. And I’m not even touching upon the grounding and catharsis that occurs when pen is put to paper…

Do They Promote Independence? Or Dependence?

The difference I see now is that cell phones almost keep us too connected. For instance, a couple weekends ago, Sage and Sarah took a road trip. I would not ordinarily think twice about it, but they called while on the road, and I knew they had a many hours ahead of them. I texted them (both, since I didn’t know who would be driving and who would be riding shotgun) later in the evening, figuring they were about mid-way through their trip.

No response.

OK, I thought. No big deal. Maybe they turned their phones off. (No, I didn’t really think they both did that, but I did entertain it as a possibility just to shut myself up.) Or maybe they were in the midst of an intense conversation, or listening to something really great on the radio. No big deal.

Then a few hours after that, I tried texting again, just to see how far away they were from their destination. Again – no response.

Lost Perspective

It was at this moment that I felt a squiggle of worry pass through me. Worry?! Because my kids in their mid-20s weren’t texting me back, even though we’d chatted earlier in the evening?

How odd. And how objectively ridiculous a feeling. I know that if we did not have the ability to communicate in this way, I would not have thought twice about them (in a worried sense).

I do not like having the question, “Should I be worried?” pass through my body and psyche simply because I cannot instantaneously reach them on their cell phones. And this is especially true given that I didn’t ‘have a bad feeling.’ No. But a ‘bad feeling’ did try mightily to sink its hooks into me when neither of them responded.

Honestly, I checked in with my intuition and got zero sense that I needed to worry, so I didn’t. But it made me think. And reflect.

Self-Reliance

If I’d had a cell phone when I was in Sweden, I wonder if I would have cultivated the self-reliance that I know was probably one of the single greatest benefits I received from living abroad for a year. And I imagine on some level it must have been huge for my mother, too. All she had to go on from one day to the next were my letters. Letters which I’d written probably 7-10 days earlier.

Wow.

There It Is Again

I just realized something. Here I am uncovering yet another way in which trust has played a huge role in my life. Or perhaps more accurately, I’ve isolated some of the greatest circumstances that demanded I hone my abilities of discernment and trust, which have carried forward (and served me well) throughout my entire life. I had to figure out which little worries flitting through my mind and body demanded attention and which ones were just fear of the boring, everyday, mostly-made-up-in-your head variety.

Discernment like that takes practice. And I wonder if the ubiquitous availability of cell phones is stunting the cultivation of this skill in all of us. If it is, how can we cultivate it in other ways?

(T-966)