Losses and Gains

On Friday I lost my phone.

Twas an iphone … it was not insured. I’ve lost my phone, my photos my well, you know how much we keep on our phones these days.

The photos are largely duplicated on my laptop and are somewhere in the icloud ether also I presume.

My reminders to myself and my voice memos etc. are not. I felt a kind of grief on losing that phone that we feel when we get cut off from a person – be it an actual bereavement or a breakdown in friendship or relationship breakup. I was devasted – and so angry with myself. Perhaps the phone fell out of my bag? Perhaps someone dipped their hand in and took it. Who knows? But clearly it was not as securely safeguarded as I would have wished for, could have, should have made sure of.

So I had to buy a new phone. Not an iphone sadly – that will have to wait. But from my loss (emotional as well as financial) I got some gain. A new phone requires new thinking, new learning. The principles of all smartphones may be the same but they all work just slightly differently. The start screens, the way you nagivate. Sometimes simple little things that can, at first, seem baffling. Then the amazing neural pathways in our brains kick in and ‘ahah!’ we try something intuitively and it works. And we’ve increased our comfort zone – can now use familiar iphone and new and unfamiliar Nokia (on Windows to boot!).

Then I also received an unexpected email from the local transport system here in London to say they owed me money! A small amount – £2.40 to be precise. What’s that? Less than $4 apparently. Something about an ‘operational problem’. But it paid for most of my tube fare this morning.

Wins and losses. Losses and gains. Life is like a kaleidoscope. Everything shifts. And resettles. The same yet different. Different the same.

Good morning!