Forced Nostalgia

The time has come for me to order a new cell phone.  Well, at least that seems to be the pressure from modern circumstance.  My phone is a little battered (if only there were rewards for winning the how-many-times-can-you-drop-a-cell-phone-and-the-battery-pops-out-but-it-still-works event), and my cell phone contract expired.  If you really want to drive your mobile phone company batty, choose to NOT renew or order a new phone until a few months AFTER the contract is up.  You'll get calls, emails, texts and all sorts of offers and discounts. 

I am a bit stubborn.  I don't know how many people have had to hear me complain that my folks still have the same actual plug-into-the-wall phones that I grew up with and now I've had almost as many phones as I've had pairs of shoes in my adulthood!  Teri and I don't even have a land line at our house--we pay for two cell phones.  Good grief!  So, I have been reluctant, old-fashioned and stubborn.  Not to mention, I have some nostalgic attachment to my phone.  It has been on several trips with me (including a couple international ones) and kept me connected to the folks back home.  It has also been the comfortable cache for photos of Teri and I since BEFORE we were officially dating. I have a little history in pictures of my phone from the very beginning and I feel quite possessive of that little bit of digital sentimentality.

Regardless, Teri helped me choose and order a new phone on Friday.  I've attempted it a few times in the past couple months on my own but I get overwhelmed by all the choices and crabby at all the things I don't want.  The new phone is arriving today.  I am feeling heavy and nostalgic as I back up my contacts and sort through photos and choose ones to keep.  I found a couple photos of my dad who has been dead now for almost two years, there were photos of the kids when they were a. still in public school and b. still lived at home, and there are photos of Teri and I--saucy ones that she sent me when we were "courting" and early, gooey couple ones that we obnoxiously took of ourselves.  My battered and scratched little Samsung is a time capsule of attachments.

I will adjust of course. It is the nature of living in the time we do.  We are forced to change, upgrade and move on.  I am really not a naturally sentimental person and tend to be one of the first people to embrace change and progress--perhaps that is why I cling so tightly to a few things that have some historical context--photos, a sturdy coat, Mother's Day cards the kids made for me.  I might not feel so nostalgic if I was actually afforded the opportunity to get tired or sick of something before being nudged and pushed to upgrade and change. 

I'm sure I will like my new cell phone and I will get over the awkwardness of a new key board and new features in a few days.  AND, I have managed to back-up all my cherished history photos, but wouldn't it be nice if everything in this modern world wasn't all about the "new every two" (or three or four or even five?)