Kindness of Strangers

Last week, we learned that we’d have to give up our cellular phone service on the day we leave for the trip.  We were hoping we could transfer our plan to “vacation mode” over the next eight months, so that we could keep our telephone number, but Verizon saw it otherwise.  I felt angry about this decision; more so than the situation warranted.  When these incongruencies occur, I pause to ask myself, “Why is this so bothersome to me?”  It’s never about the cell phone.  The phone, I realized, embodied the process of detachment, the chipping away of life as we know it.  There was safety and comfort in knowing that, if nothing else, we’d return home and have a degree of continuity from our previous life.  We could be reached in the same way we always had.   

Our life is being stripped down to the bones.  The phone was one of many pairing down moments we’ve recently been faced with.  Gone are the tangibles: cable, car insurance, magazine subscriptions, memberships, and most of our wardrobe.  There are intangible things we’re sloughing away, too.  Routines and schedules.  To-do lists.  Professional identities.  States of mind. 

As a result, I feel a little naked and emotionally exposed.  The stuff of life is slowly being shed, and there’s nothing but the yawn of space stretching out between me and the world.  I’m beginning to understand agoraphobia.  Each goodbye I’ve had to face this week has been increasingly difficult.  Not because we’re never coming back; simply because it’s one less attachment I have to my familiar life. 

When we return, we will be in a position where we will be forced to make intentional decisions as to what elements we want to add back to our life.  This is a rare opportunity.  Most of us are professional collectors.  We take on all sorts of obligations, habits, services, things; we don’t often give much thought to what we collect.  It’s not until we polish off the veneer that we see the layers of life we have accumulated.

I have started a “Things to Do When We Get Back” list.  Most of it involves adding back all the things we have taken away.　Call the YMCA.  Call AAA.  Call insurance company.  Teeth cleaned.  Hair cut.  Get cell phone.  Cable?  But I wonder how different my perspective will be when we return; if these things we regard as must-haves and must-dos will seem inconsequential (or, at the least, not vital).   I don’t see myself “going native” over the course of eight months, and I hope I don’t turn into one of those people who too-proudly touts that they don’t own a TV.  But I wonder how important it will be to get Bravo back so I can catch the newest episodes of Project Runway.