My first one. My mother’s. My grandmother’s. A few others that have stayed with me without effort. I don’t memorize numbers anymore. There’s no need. Everything is stored, saved, retrievable in an instant. The only numbers I know by heart now belong to my children.
There was a time when staying in touch required a kind of attentiveness. You kept an address book. You wrote things down. You remembered birthdays because you had to. Without the contacts stored in our phones today, many of us would be lost.
I used to know how to get places without help. I could navigate the city by memory. I knew bus routes. I knew landmarks. I paid attention. I also knew when people were born, when to call them, when to check in.
More than anything, I used to sit down and talk to people. I would pick up the phone, settle into a chair, and have long conversations without distraction. I’ve always been an introvert, but conversation didn’t drain me the way it does now. Texting has changed something. It’s efficient, but it’s also made communication feel fragmented. Shortened. Easy to postpone.
I used to write letters to my cousin in Louisiana. I would write, mail the letter, and wait. It took about a week for her to receive it, and another week or more for her reply to reach me. The waiting was part of the exchange. There was time built into the process. Time to think. Time to notice what had happened since the last letter.
Now everything is instant. Messages arrive immediately, and responses are expected just as quickly. The pause that once existed has disappeared. With it, some of the care.
Staying in touch used to be a skill. One that required memory, patience, and presence. I don’t think it’s lost. I think it’s just waiting to be practiced again.