There is no me without you. Would I remember your phone number if my contacts were suddenly deleted, with no backups? If I’m being completely honest, not even the area code.
I have known you for the entirety of my time on this mortal plane. Should we FaceTime with the kids? Okay. No, yeah. [Takes a shot.] I think I could do that.
I want to know EVERYTHING that is going on with you. By scrolling through your social media posts.
Sometimes I miss you so much that your absence feels like someone close to me has passed away. Ah, you want to get a phone call on the calendar? Oh. No, that sounds amazing. [Panics in millennial.] Two weeks from Wednesday, perfect. I definitely won’t completely forget until the phone rings.
Every aspect of my personality was informed or shaped by you. Please enjoy this GIF of Beyoncé dancing for your birthday.
Every time we catch up, it’s like manna for my spirit. Also, have you heard of Marco Polo? No, it’s amazing, it’s a messaging app where you send each other recorded videos of things you would have said on the phone, and then the other person watches the video you sent and records their own to send back to you. For you to watch alone in your apartment with your cats. Isn’t that so much better than communicating synchronously to each other’s faces?
You would not believe what just happened, and you are the ONLY person who can give me perspective on this. So insane. Hang on, let me explain it to you excruciatingly slowly in a series of seventeen texts. Feel free to reply incredulously to every third text or so before I’ve even remotely finished the story. No, I know, it seemed like I was done, but that was just the setup.
My darlingest friends: I love you all so deeply that I want to form a commune with you and grow old together for the rest of our lives, Golden Girls style. Please, tell me we can make this a reality. Oh noooo. Our long-scheduled group Zoom fell through at the last minute, and no one can make it anymore? Aw, maaaaan. I am sooooo disappointed and definitely not relieved to the core of my being. Next time!
Who would have thought that one day we’re twenty and drinking jungle juice out of a tub in the basement of a frat house, and now you’re a mom. It’s been so amazing to watch you mature into this role—no no no no no, please do not hand the phone to your three-year-old, I still have vertigo from last time.
Omg, just saw your Instagram post, I need to know all the details. Oh… you sent a voice text. That’s… haha… so cool. It’ll be so much like talking on the phone that I… Wow, yeah, no, I will definitely just hit that little play button and listen away. I just… just need to do this other thing real quick. But I will definitely not NOT listen to this, because it is NOT the same as talking on the phone and fills me with no existential dread whatsoever. Heh. So cool. Technology…
I’m trying to call more, I honestly am. But do you have personal business hours or anything? When would be the best time to call, where there would be the least amount of screaming in the background?
This is ridiculous; I used to share a bedroom with you! I’m going to call you more, if it’s the last thing I do. (NARRATOR: It was, in fact, the very last thing she ever did.)
Now that I’m a parent, I have a much deeper appreciation for how hard it must have been for you and Dad as parents, a decade younger than I am now, with way more kids, way less money, and way less information about how to be a parent. You did the best you could, and I realize that now. Oh, you’re gonna pass the phone to Dad so I can talk to him too? Huh. I mean, I don’t really see why, I just told you everything I wanted to say, but okay…
You know, the pandemic was obviously so traumatizing in so many ways, but on the plus side, it finally taught us that talking on the phone is neither hard nor terrifying. Thank god. Everything is going to be different from now on.
FIVE YEARS LATER
Happy birthday! Please enjoy this GIF of Beyoncé dancing… on the beach.