“Turn off the light now,
Turn off the lights now,
Turn off the lights now.”
This story isn’t about the catchy Pupil song which my grade school classmates and I rocked to back in the day.
I remember getting my very first mobile phone back in third grade. I pulled out a Nokia 3310 out of my skirt pocket and instantly felt like the coolest girl in the classroom.
I wasn’t one of those from a wealthy family that gave their kids whatever the latest model was though I did manage to have my phone at the time where your grade school confidence needed the image boost.
From that day on, I could never remember a day where I didn’t have a mobile phone with me. I did have times that I would instead leave it and be disconnected, but as technology improved, so did my need to feel connected all the time.
I remember it was around the fourth quarter of last year; my usual gang was surfing in Dahican. I vividly remember how awesome the waves were that day. I convinced the group to move to Poseidon’s spot to have fewer crowds and more pumping waves.
Five hours and a smile full of stoke later, I was paddling back to shore. It was one of those memorable surf sessions that you’d want to remember forever. The tide was going out, and we could already see the sandbar that used to be under
I ran to the little hut where we placed our stuff. I couldn’t seem to find my phone anywhere. I checked all our bags and scoured the possible places I could have left it, but it wasn’t there.
Do you know that sinking feeling at the pit of your stomach that you’ve done something irreversible? I felt it. I denied it and thought maybe I just misplaced it. We looked for it the whole day. Retraced our steps and tried calling until my phone couldn’t be reachable anymore.
Like the end of any relationship, we have to move on. I never thought I’d say it, but I relished the feeling of not having to be connected. I decided to get a replacement phone four days after losing it.
Living by the sea, I felt the freedom of disconnection. It was one I much needed but couldn’t do because of work and societal demands. This disconnection was precisely what I needed.
Though I did find my phone eight months later, over a year and into the present, I lost my phone again — this time in the big city, Manila.
For sure, losing something in the big city is different from your home break where everybody knows everybody. Realizing I lost it a couple of weeks back took me to the first time I lost my phone, only the sinking feeling I had was more pronounced that I was never going to find my phone again.
Losing my phone in Manila, while living independently, brought a different side to disconnection. While my reaction to losing it in Dahican was welcome, this time, it wasn’t. I was thrown off-guard. I never realized how dependent I was on my phone for everything! From banking to getting around (because I didn’t know how to commute), to getting food and everything that my life more convenient, I lost.
A week into losing my phone, I couldn’t get a replacement still because every branch I went to didn’t have stock so I had to wait for two weeks to get the phone I wanted and that was within my budget. I didn’t want to get a cheap replacement phone just for the sake of having a phone because that would require spending again.
Now that I’ve got a new phone and had it much sooner than expected, I realized a lot of things I wouldn’t have if I weren’t forced to be disconnected again. I needed to be forced to disconnect to learn the value of being connected.
Losing the phone was a wakeup call to tell me that I wasn’t really in control — that I wasn’t the boss of my own life. I was a slave. I was forced to do what I thought I should be doing, not what I needed to do, not what my soul needed to feel.
The disconnection allowed me to feel the hardship of life without technology, and it also allowed to me remember how much simpler life was without it. Though I won’t say, I’d go phoneless forever because my work needs it, but from time to time, it’s great to disconnect and recharge your inner self. I hope none of you ever get a disconnection notice in the guise of a lost phone but trust me; there’s always a lesson learned in every mishap.
Check out the continuation of this story in my Instagram: @ferinasantos.
