So I got a new phone today. Which is great. I love it. It has a fabulous camera and all sorts of stuff that I will likely never use but felt a need to have anyways. When you get a new phone the nice guys at the phone store transfer over all of your contacts and pictures and stuff. Stuff except text messages. I am very grateful that I don't have to spend hours manually transferring contacts over, and am very glad to not loose any of the pictures that I didn't have saved to my memory card. The thing that I'm having a hard time with is the inability to transfer text messages.
Years ago on the tv show Sabrina the Teenage Witch, there was part of an episode where there was this magic closet that you opened the door and on the inside was a room full of people shouting compliments at you and telling you how wonderful you were. So anytime Sabrina was having a hard day she could just open the door instantly she was met with the shouts of strangers that made her feel better. Similarly, in my high school psychology class we made little cards where we wrote genuine original compliments about three people of your choosing in the class. We wrote these compliments on the persons given 3x5 card and our teacher laminated them for us. It was really nice to have around.
On my old phone I had several text messages from various people that had things that could always make me feel better or feel less alone, or more encouraged, or whatever I needed to get through the day. I had them all saved, and I looked through them often, kind of like my own closet of complimenting people. Now I'm without those. I'm also without the "I love you" and "You're beautiful and wonderful and I can't imagine my life without you" texts of an old relationship. This is a weird sort of almost closure. The relationship ended amicably, for the most part. We're in the process of being best friends, but it's weird because we leaped right over the just friends part in the beginning of the relationship. And WOW is being just friends hard!!! I don't know that you're supposed to be able to be best friends after you break up with your first love, but I am absolutely determined that I'm going to, and we are friends ...he is still the best friend I have out here, and knows me better than anyone else, ...and this is not the point of this post... The point is, over the millions of text messages sent and received over the course of the relationship there were a precious few that I still had saved. Even now 18 months after it started and 5 months since it ended.
It's one more stage of love recovery. I've lost track of how many stages there have been, which is kind of a shame, because the book could have been a best seller, but you know what I mean. Break up ...mutually ...and cry. Feel better, then cry some more. Then feel better. Then go out with someone new, then cry because you're moving on, and no one can compare quite yet. Then feel better. Then cry when he dates someone new because he's moving on, and you're not quite sure how she compares to you in his mind, then feel better when you realize it's kind of ok because you moved on too. It's like going up baby stairs. Every one is physically painful and emotionally draining, and it seems like they're never ending, but each one gets you to higher ground. It's been a LOOONG process for me. Even when I met someone new who is wonderful and fabulous and I'm pretty sure I'm falling pretty hard for. He went back home 3000 miles away. So I'm also mourning the loss of butterfly inducing texts I saved from starting a new relationship, and the yearning I miss you's of that whole new relationship. They're not on my new phone. It's like a whole new blank canvas. Exciting and scary and sad. I think I'll be hanging on to my old phone for a while. At least until I can write my favorite text messages from family friends and loves on something more tangible and permanent. And acid free.
I love my new phone and can't wait to save all kinds of new and exciting messages that make me smile laugh and cry, but I will miss my old texts a LOT!!! I suppose this is one of my crazy girly sentimental issues that I usually try to keep hidden. Oops :) it's out! Lol!
