Losing My Shit

Today I lost my cell phone. Actually I lost it two days ago but hadn't noticed because we were up north visiting family and they live in a beautiful spot and like most peaceful quiet places there is not even a glimmer of hope of service within several miles of their house. So I didn't notice that it was missing until we were driving home today and I traced my movements back to the last place I had used it and it was the bathroom of the Chevron we had visited the day before. I had called my sister to tell her we were running late for our rendez-vous because we had to stop for gas, and I have a vague memory of setting it down on a toilet paper holder so that I could wipe a juvenile bottom.

It's gone. Called the Chevron and they had not seen it so someone must have swiped it. It was a nice phone. Not something I really needed actually and I thought today about replacing it with just a simple cheap phone.

But it also got me thinking about all the losing of things I have been doing. Just a few months ago, again driving down from up north, I lost my wedding ring. And before that I lost my engagement ring, presumably when we were robbed and I lost my computer too. It is all very personal stuff. The computer and the cell phone holding all kinds of personal information (and images of my daughters) and the rings obviously holding a lot of personal symbolic meaning. All replaceable, but none easily or without a major investment of money and time.

I bought a new computer, a much nicer model than the predecessor, but the fingers seem not to need replacement rings. Not yet anyway. I love my husband and the wedding rings need to be rethought, perhaps updated to the more advanced married people we have become. I need a phone but not something fancy when all I use it for is calling and keeping appointments. Perhaps I should think of myself as a snake, shedding a crisp outer sheath that was cramping my style.

It's interesting. Now I have to tell everyone and ask them to email me their numbers since I never write down or memorize numbers anymore. We used to do that.