The Last Thing I Want to Use my Phone For

I used to love it when the phone rang. The surge of excitement was palpable. My reactions to the trill of the bell tone were:

• Who's calling me? 
• Is it him? 
• Did I get the job? 
• Am I invited to that party? 
• Who finds me interesting enough to want to talk to me? 

When Husband and I started dating the delight of the phone call intensified.

• Is it him?
• Will there be a second date?
• I love the sound of his voice.
• I can't believe he finds me interesting enough to call in the middle of a busy day.
• Does he love me? I think he loves me? If he keeps calling he must love me, right?

Honestly the ring of the phone made my heart leap; I had to catch my breath, I sped to answer it, it was even a little arousing. It signaled the unexpected in the routine of a day, and with that came the sonorous hope and promise of dreams fulfilled, prayers answered and existence validated.

Now when the phone rings, or vibrates as the times dictate, my reactions are as follows:

• Fuck.
• Who wants something from me?
• Who's in trouble?
• Who's dead?
• Who do I have to pick up now because of that emergency at work?

The romance of the ringing phone is gone, and its interruption in the course of a day feels much more akin to a harbinger of doom.

The weird thing is, I love my fancy phone. I love it for all of its purposes save it's main one. When my Soda Candy Crush game is stalled because of an incoming call, I make sure the person on the other end knows by the tone of my "Hello" that this call is unwanted. Instead of rushing to answer a call, I pause over the caller ID to assess if I have the strength to go through with it. And, ironically, the caller I dread the most is Husband. 

My dread has nothing to do with my affection for him; the simple truth is 99.9% of the time he is not calling to profess his love, he's calling because something needs to be taken care of. And the same is true of my calls to him. We are no longer explorers on the brink of all that is possible and exciting, we are laboring in the midst of the particulars of possible. We found what was possible and are desperately trying to maintain it; maybe in an attempt to prove why we strove for it in the first place or maybe because the dream of what is possible doesn't always include detailed instructions of the how of possible. So, the poor phone call has become the victim of my resentment of all the unexpected hurdles of all those expectations I originally loved about its signature ting-a-ling. 

Yet fear not poor phone call, my hostility is fleeting since the circle of life is not yet complete. There will come a time when I catch my breath again at your tinkling song; when I look forward to the sound of my children's' voices calling from the brink of their possibles, or the obliging voice of my grandchildren thanking me for the $5 on Valentines day, or the friendly voice of the Telemarketer asking for a moment of my time.

Just kidding Telemarketer, my hostility for you will never waiver.