Foreign Object

I was digging around in one of our drawers yesterday, (where we keep the miscellaneous items like band aids and batteries) and underneath a messy pile of museum brochures and old ticket stubs and past trip itineraries (they build up in number after nine countries), guess what I found?

My cell phone!

I forgot those things existed, friends.

And it looked so strange sitting there in my hand; I had to pause for a second.

I haven’t touched a cell phone in over three months. I haven’t thought about it, and I have to tell you, I haven’t missed it one bit.

I’ve missed the people it connects me with tremendously, but I haven’t missed the tones and the rings and the beeps and the buzzes.

The thing about it is, I completely appreciate the wonderful things a cell phone allows for back at home…I can text Marissa random You’ve Got Mail quotes on a whim or call my mom on the verge of tears when I drop my psychology notebook in the toilet the day before the midterm (Mother dearest, aren’t you glad you gave birth to someone as coordinated and rational as I).

But I also can’t help feeling refreshed by the fact that I’ve lived a life this past semester that doesn’t necessitate cell phone usage—I look at my little black phone and it doesn’t carry the same weight as it used to, it doesn’t have the same power as before. And I think there is some small freedom in that.

I told Allie before we went to sleep last night about the foreign object I discovered in our drawer that afternoon.

And we decided that those are the strange, little things that will make our adjustment back to real life weird and almost difficult at times.

Things like cell phones and television commercials, driving (no silly rickshaw drivers?) and fixed prices (I half expect the checker at Target to tell me my total and to respond without thinking “Fair price now. I’ll give you ten dollars—final offer”).

The beautiful thing about it though is that I don’t just come home to those things, but to people who love me, people I ache for even now, people who will lavish me with grace as I find myself, once again, in transition.

Love. Anna