Old Age Day by Day June 18, 2010

The phone rang just now and I noticed a tiny frisson of excitement as I picked up the receiver. It was an automated reminder of my husband's dentist appointment. Whoopie. I'm old enough that a phone call used to mean a connection to a live human being on the other end. Now, in the house, I have to check and see who's calling, in case it's still another salesman or person wanting a donation, but out here, in my work space, I have an old fashioned phone. The phone call is rarely a human being who knows me, though the stranger refers to me by my first name as if we'd been in grade school together. What was I hoping for? One of my kids perhaps, or my granddaughter. But those calls are rare. Email supplants some of the phoning, and friends also schedule by email. I think I miss the voice. And the possibilities of a live human being call. A phone call can go off in any direction, but emails seldom have that tangential adventuraousness. My best friend and I phone each other once a week - and our connection is stronger because of it. Neither of us knows what we'll end up talking about most of the time, but it ranges from the silly to the life-altering. People of younger generations don't talk like that on the phone. Or in person either, generally. I miss it. I don't get to FEEL them from the voice and the conversation. The lack of scripting is delightful to me.

Oh, well, that's the way things are, and conversations are still unpredictable and goofy and fun in person. I find out a lot of information about myself that way. I discover what was bothering me, what I'm unconsciously problem solving, how I feel after I've talked with that person. I listen to them and what they don't say is often as important as what they do. We may be feeling alike an it's such a comfort to know that someone else is experiencing what I'm dealing with. I gain perspective.

So, the morning is young and I may still get a call that is a real person I care about who will make me laugh or cry or know, yet again, that I am not alone in anything I think and feel. There is an ocean of us, and I've only to tip my toe into the wet. I can make that call myself.