A Rough Start

A Rough Start

Saturday, May 17, 2014

I have been 'away' from home all of 50 minutes and my stress level has already been through the roof. Mama walked me into the airport and made sure that my bag was checked and that I got through security before leaving. I flew through security and found my gate in record time. I filled up my water bottle and settled into my seat to wait to board. I decided this was prime time to catch up on QuizUp while I waited. I went to reach for my phone and...Nothing. It was gone. I immediately start to panic: What if I left it somewhere? How will I get a hold of my parents? What if I need to make an emergency call?

I went to pay a phone to call my parents. All I needed was 50 cents...I had 40. No go. I have a Mac so I figured that I could just FaceTime audio my parentals. Also, a no go. At a complete loss of what to do, I decide to go for a last ditch effort at security. This super helpful gentleman called my phone as he walked up and down the lane I came through. I hadn't taken anything out of my bag so I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be there. The TSA officials allowed me to call my parents' phones (hooray for contacts on your computer! Apple's cloud is the best) to see if they had it. Luckily, it had just slipped out of my pocket while I was in the car and was not lost in the mysterious abyss of the universe. 

To say I am a little bummed would be an understatement. I am embarrassed by how naked I feel without my phone. No I wasn't going to call or text while I am in Europe, but it was more of a comfort thing. Now I can go completely off the grid, except for my blog and the occasional Facebook post. This should be a good exercise for me in cutting the cord.

While I am trying to see the silver lining in this situation, there are some major downsides. I will not bore you with listing all of them, I will simply highlight the most important. For the past few weeks I have been carefully crafting several Spotify playlists in anticipation of this journey, all to no avail. Hello, long, silent train rides; I'm coming your way.