Life in the Slow Lane (Mary Strand)

This month at YA Outside the Lines, our topic is suspense.

Once again I will utterly ignore what that means in the context of novels. Ignoring the topic I'm supposed to write about, after all, has been a cherished habit of mine since at least high school.

I'm writing this blog three days before it goes live ... and four days after I lost my cell phone in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. My entire life has been in suspense ever since.

On the day I lost my cell phone, I inhaled comfort food. I soon realized I had to stop doing that, so the next day I stopped ... until dinner, which consisted of two chocolate chip cookies. (They were delicious.)

The day after that, moments before buying a new phone, I learned that my cell phone had been found ... but getting it back was a whole 'nother story. I wasn't eating ghastly amounts of comfort food anymore, but breakfast the next morning consisted of a huge M&M cookie. (Also delicious.)

My point, if I have one, is that life without a cell phone in this day and age is painful, and I feel as if my life is on hold until I get my phone back. (I had to borrow my husband's cell phone yesterday for six or seven hours, which allowed him to appreciate my pain, and hoo boy, he did.)

Ironically, last weekend I was actually thinking about taking a break from Facebook for a little while, just to clear my head and (frankly) get more stuff done. Unfortunately, the Universe was listening. And now I get far LESS stuff done.

When I was in D.C. this past weekend, after my phone disappeared, I didn't have my laptop or iPad. My connection to the world was gone. I couldn't take a Lyft to meet up with some (excellent) friends on Sunday night. My hotel had to call a taxi for me, and later my friend had to call one to get me back to my hotel. I couldn't call or text anyone, even to tell them I didn't have a phone. The millions of text or voice-memo notes and reminders I constantly send myself: nope. I couldn't take photos. What was going on in the world? No idea. I finally even cried, which is something I usually reserve for someone dying.

I felt like I was.

Now I'm home, and I have my laptop, but my life as I know it is still gone. After missing a day, I figured out how to do Duolingo on my computer, but it's not the same at my desk rather than when I'm cozy in bed. Wordle, Connections, Strands, and Squaredle (and my daily interactions with friends who also play them): gone. I live in terror of missing appointments, because I don't have my phone alarm. Sure, it's on my iPad, but I can't fit my iPad into my pocket or purse. I quit posting on Facebook. Probably good for me, but bleah. I've cut myself off from the world, which is not easy for an extrovert. I even quit playing guitar, even though I'm in the middle of recording an album and prepping for upcoming gigs. I may have quit eating cookies (possibly), but my head is not in the game.

With any luck, which is a scarce commodity for me right now, my cell phone will arrive tomorrow. But having been cut off from life this whole week, part of me is more than a little afraid that it'll take longer than that to come back from this ... and I have a pretty tight book deadline right now. (Writing: also not happening.)

Some people have said that this may turn out to be a good experience for me, and I should relish it. I encourage them to lose their phone for a week.

So there's suspense for you. It's not all it's cracked up to be.

Mary Strand is the author of Pride, Prejudice, and Push-Up Bras and three other novels in the Bennet Sisters YA series. You can find out more about her books and music at marystrand.com.