(128) Smart phone

I just got off a five hour phone convo with one of my best friends. Which, all on its own, should be twelve shades of hypocritical: I am not a phone-chat person. My friends are not phone-chat people. My family isn’t comprised of phone-chat people. No one who is worth anything on this planet is a phone-chat person.

Ok wait whatever maybe some are. (They’re not.) Also, I’m annoying for saying ‘one of my best friends’. Ewwwww. Why. OMG guys my bff forever just vomited directly on me because I’m so gross on public social networks OMG GUYS YOLO! #bffs #loveher #liveauthentic Shhh ok, it’s possible that I have exceeded my allotment of waking hours and am now insane. Shhh. It’s ok. Pressing on.

So. Five hours. I don’t even know that many words, much less ways to put them in any sort of legitimate order. And, we’re not always on point the way we were tonight; we’ve had phone dates (yes they are dates. they must be scheduled. because phone-chat is a hideous and unexpected reality which requires both of us to endure lengthy emotional prep) that have been scattered and wandering and casual. Short. (sane.)

I wrote, awhile ago, that there is a moment in friendships where they stop being ‘pre’. (‘pre’ is maybe a bad word for it; there’s no judgment for pre-friendships; they are still friends. whatever; I’m tired. your face is pre.) Tonight’s phone convo was with a friend who stopped being pre awhile ago. I thought we’d grown, that was it, now it’s real and we’re here and this is a full, thick, friendship, exactly as it needs to be for us.

I was wrong. I’ve always believed in growth in relationships to the point where I fling myself at opportunities that vaguely hint at growth in the margins, just on the off chance that maybe I will get to be a part of something that becomes. That evolves. That is as eager for more and better and easier and harder all at once. And even though this belief pervades my every investment, I will still forget the unreliability of stability; how ‘constant’ will change in that creeping way familiarity has.

It’s a dangerous memory lapse; sometimes unattended stable things disintegrate.

But, every once in a very long while, you latch on to an opportunity that is met by someone who wants to grow with you. Who wants to learn about you even though she already knows you; who doesn’t hesitate to tend her side of the friendship field while you tend yours. Every once in a slippery lucky tumble, you’ll fall right into a friendship that will always have more. That will make your efforts flourish into a trust so unblemished, it’s hard to remember when it was born.

I hate the phone. Phones are for texting and the internet and little games that distract me from diving into my seventh vat of coffee at 5pm for no reason other than my 4:45 student is somehow at the beach and I am fresh out of ice picks.

But every once in a great lucky long while, they are for phone-chat.