As I was pulling up to the parking lot and offering to stay in the car while she went shovel-hunting (what kind of a husband are you? I hear you ask. Yup, Karen's picked a winner, all right!), I realised to my horror that I had forgotten to bring my phone out. How on earth was I going to pass the time now?
While I sat alone in the car listening to the CD that was playing, my thumbs flicked nervously across a phantom screen that wasn't there and pressed imaginary buttons. The fingers played with the air-conditioning and radio like a chain-smoker trying to ignore his cigarette-less hand. The seconds dragged on into minutes and no matter how I adjusted my seating position, I could never get comfortable.
Five or six minutes of wrestling later and I finally surrendered to the presence of the only friend I had when I was alone - me.
My life changed forever when I first got my smartphone. Instant gratification of news updates came in the form of Facebook status updates or Instagram photos. With 3G, I could catch up on the news in Australia and Malaysia. And once I have exhausted all my craving for new information, I could beat up some poor character on Street Fighter IV (or have them beat me up, which is usually the case).
It was a beautiful distraction.
And so there I was in my car, and the first thing I notice was the music coming through the CD player. I remembered a time when I could remember lyrics to entire songs within four or five listens. I have lost that ability now, and I have always put it down to mid-life onset Alzheimer's.
Karen has another explanation though - she remembers a time when we were younger, when all we did was sit in front of our cassette players and listened. No TV going on in the background, no party to pump up the volume to, no smooth easy listening on your drive home. We just literally sat in front of our radios, hugging our knees, and listened.
Our imaginations would put the microphone in our hands, the stage lights in our eyes, that boy/girl of our dreams in the only chair in that empty concert hall. And we would sing. Over and over and over until the wrong words became right, until each inflection of the original singer was mimicked, until the concert hall overflowed with girls screaming our names, holding up placards like 'MaRRY Me!' and 'I'm PrEgnaNt! IT's YoUrs!'
What I realised as well in that quietness was that I was no longer being invaded by someone else's idea, someone else's opinion, and I could perhaps even form an independent opinion of my own. (Who would have thought?)
Too often we keep too busy and forget to enjoy our own company. We should get lost in our own thoughts once in awhile and see where the path leads us. We should have time to take stock of our days and think about how to make things better. We should have enough quiet to let our inner child run free, and paint the walls of our dark mind with colourful new ideas and thoughts.
We should give ourselves the chance to create, rather than consume; to reflect, rather than react; to process, rather than push aside our problems.
It may start by us leaving our phones at home more often.
