Incommunicado

What a weird feeling. This morning I had to leave by six for a meeting in Rochester some 75 miles away. Still half-asleep and feeling guilty that I didn't take Melky for her morning ride, I hit the Thruway in another freaking snowstorm!

Thirty miles into the trip, I realized that I didn't have my cell phone. Do you know that the overwhelming urge was to call someone and let them know I didn't have the phone?

Of course, I couldn't do that.

Turning around wasn't an option either.

So, very carefully, I prepared my obsessed mind to accept the fact and just handle life without the cell phone for the next six hours. It shouldn't have been so difficult, right? We lived without being attached for years. I could return calls later in the day.

"It's okay. I can do this."

Except I couldn't. I thought about that phone every three minutes for the next four hours. I thought about who was calling, texting and emailing. I wondered if they missed me.

The worst part was how weird it felt not to pat the phone in my coat pocket to make sure I had it when I went into my meeting. It was even stranger, while at the meeting, not being able to check the phone for the time.

I was sick to my stomach all morning long.

Later in the day, I made it back to my phone.

I had missed three calls, four texts, 11 emails and 4 Facebook posts.

None of them were life-changing.

Yet I was able to breathe easy.

Now I just have to make it all up to Melky and I'll be guilt-free.