When Adele sang “Hello”, never in my wildest dream did I imagine that I’d be using my lunch break to draft the implication of a call from the perspective of the caller and the receiver.
Most of what I will consider my childhood was spent out of my home than in it (I won’t get into the details of all that right now) because of this, I have always had a long distance relationship with my parents that often revolved around a telephone.
I remember the almost never ending line to call home in boarding school which often resulted in finding alternate means to connect home. Now, it seems sad narrating this, but in hindsight, this experience influenced my perception on the interpretation of presence. To an extent, the need to value quality over quantity became a necessity in building relationships especially with friends and family.
Now, when people ask if I miss home I often wonder how to answer that home is always with me. Home for me has never been a place but a presence. Despite being miles and miles from my family, there is contentment with the security and love their support offers even across oceans. It is beautiful really.
What prompted me to write this piece though was the rumination I had about how much my life’s journey has been documented by the receiver on the other end of the phone. You can expand this context beyond a routine conversation to catch up with loved ones to even business or professional opportunities that opened up based on an agreeable receiver.
In this context though, I am thinking about days when I have called my dad to share good news. How he was on the other end of the phone when I got the visa appointment I had been waiting over a year for. Moments when I broke down crying out in frustration about how I felt like a failure because my plans weren’t working out. His jubilation when he heard about my finally getting a job 😂. Oh yeah, that was something.
Pondering on these events pervades me with mixed feelings about the solid assurance of supportive response I can expect each time I call and the phobia of possible silence someday. The calls that also narrate an end…
It makes me curious about the hellos that changed everything. The “hi” that turned into a love story. The many whispers of love we share even in raised decibels with our friends and loved ones. The connection of love I have taken via a text, a phone call, and social media.
The written secrets, the gossip, the emotional outbursts…. We all have friends we wouldn’t want our chat with to leak to the public (as I type this, I have some friends in mind😂😂😂). Memories upon memories made with words, sounds, and silence.
It makes me wonder how the tides turn too. How my friends pick up the phone wanting to share the good news with me, or how my brother shares numerous pictures with me daily… How my dad rings me to update me on gist or my mom calls to tell me about her day. All these glimmers of affection. The snippets of love captured on the other side.
It makes me thankful for the little things. The inventors of the telephone, the internet, social media, and technology. Dreamers who help bend reality into new reality. It makes me thankful for friends and family who give this medium meaning.
More than these, the need to savour the time without hurrying off, the expectancy of a response as long as it lasts, to care for and be cared for, to simply accept that everything fades to nothingness.
Connoisseur of Memories 