Monday, February 18, 2008

Texting

It is strange what is hard when moving countries and the like...

While we were in NZ we had a cell phone. We used it to text our friends and to call people. There is nothing very unusual in this I realise. However, we didn't use it anywhere near as much as I, at least, used to use my mobile in the UK. In NZ, we'd go for days without using the phone and sometimes I'd forget where it was or leave it on silent for days on end an fail to notice messages. In the UK, that would not have happened. And so, in a very strange way, texting people with my new number has been one of the hardest things I've had to do since returning to the UK. Somehow that act of sending out my new number has been the thing that has made this move feel most final.
As neither of us have jobs or any certainty about the future, it is very easy to pretend that we are currently on holiday, seeing our family, catching up with friends, enjoying the novelty of very frosty mornings in the beautiful Lake District. There are few things that ground us in reality. Even buying a car, being something rather alien to us as we have previously done quite well at inheriting, has been rather unreal and certainly ungrounding. Yet the act of texting, of having a number, makes it somehow much more solid, much more like this is really what is happening.
So I've found myself picking up my phone and putting it down again numerous times before managing to text anyone. I've still only made it perhaps a third of the way through my phone book. If that. Weird, huh?
So, yeah, still in denial about leaving New Zealand. Ho hum.

2 comments:

Ellie said...

You'll be fine *hug* don't forget, NZ is always there to return to.
You have managed to make me feel homesick talking about frosty mornings in the Lakes though, my family has for years gone on holiday there at this time of year and the frosty mornings are my favourites.
i hope you're enjoying them!

AdventuringJen said...

Thanks :)
The frosty mornings have gone now for slightly wilder, wet weather - which is also quite appealling in a way.
Hope you are feeling better now :)