I’ve lost my mobile phone twice recently - within three days.

The first time I lost it was when I was walking to work from home on Saturday. A friend of mine called me to discuss our plans for the evening and either because I was in a bad reception area or because her rather moody phone didn’t want us to talk anymore, we couldn’t reach each other for several minutes. I kept trying to call, but gave up, and put the phone back into my bag. Then I walked on with my Ipod’s volume down, so that I can hear my phone ringing when my friend calls. I walked on for another several minutes and decided that I should call her. I’m on a monthly capped plan, so I have enough freedom to call someone without worrying about the bill or running out of prepaid credit. Changing to this capped plan has made a huge difference in how I communicate and work, but that’s for another discussion or a blog entry.

So I put my hand into my bag and moved it around, waiting for that sensation of my skin touching the skin of my mobile phone pouch. Eventually I had to stop and actually look inside the bag. I had my wallet, notebook, and water… but no mobile. I had to look several times until I could really accept that the phone was no longer there. I panicked and walked up and down the streets between where I was and where I had stopped talking on the phone.

I was devastated. I couldn’t gather my thoughts together. I think there were some worries about forth-coming “very important” phone calls, some possible plans about how I could “triangulate” the location of the phone and whether such a method was even possible in Australia, regrets about why it wasn’t insured, and also the worry that I may have to get a new number and it’s going to be hell to try to remember it. I went on a renewed contract recently, and this phone (Sony Ericsson K800i) is not one of the cheaper models available, so the financial consequences (let’s not forget I’m a PhD student) were to be significant. Besides, I “borrowed” my sister’s rare phone pouch (without much intention to return - it’s related to this animation that’s related to my research … complicated story.. or excuse) and it was still officially hers, not mine. Losing it would bring about some serious sibling dispute.

Amongst all these thoughts and emotions though, the biggest was the helpless feeling of loss. As I was walking up and down like a crazy woman (luckily I didn’t howl or anything in my mournful state) I was completely lost in the overwheleming emotion stemming from the idea that I may never get to see some of those saved text messages and photos again. Unlike Japan, we still predominantly use sms for messaging rather than mobile email. With the phone gone, important fragments of my life vanished. Those sweet and bitter messages from past lovers (at least those I hadn’t deleted while cursing), beautiful moments of my life I visually captured, things I wanted to send but never could so were saved in my draft folder… all these were gone. I was devastated.

After a while I gained some rationality back and decided to call the phone. No answer. No answer.

Eventually a guy picked up. But as soon as I said “I think you have my mobile” he stopped talking and I could hear him talking with a woman about what he should do. He was saying that he really liked the phone etc. He hung up. I was really afraid that he wouldn’t return the phone because well… he liked it very much. I called again and again, and thought that if he really wanted to keep it, I would ask him to at least give me a chance to tranfer my history into … whatever was to replace my Sony Erikson K800i. He eventually picked up again, and we arranged to meet. He initially suggested that we meet on Monday, but I just could not wait that long… and why should I? We were within a very close proximity. So happily, I got my phone back, thanked him, and was the happiest person in the world for a while.

Today my phone is elsewhere. I think it’s in my office. I’m pretty sure it is; in fact, I know it is, so although it’s not here with me physically, I’m fine. Thanks to auto-refreshing gmail, I promptly receive important messages. Just a few minutes ago, I arranged to meet a friend tomorrow morning (we haven’t IM’ed each other yet). I knew that he would’ve messaged or called rather than sending an email to make such a suggestion (at 10pm to meet tomorrow morning), so I assumed that he had tried to call; I checked my mobile email, which stores voice messages, and yes, he was righ there :)

Through these experiences, I’ve come to think more about the embeddedness of the mobile phone in my life (physically, socially, and psychologically), personal narrative/history and the role of the mobile in constructing and storing it, multi-layered techno-social networks in which both I and the phone act as nodes, and the feeling of “loss” in general. What does it mean to “possess” something in relation to tangibility? What does it mean to be without a mobile phone?

Good think these past three days made me think. But at least for a while, I would like to be spared from the feeling/s of loss.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 11:13 pm and is filed under personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.