The Phone I Was Finally Able to Turn On

Today I turned on a phone I hadn't touched in a long time.

At first glance, it was just an old phone.

But it wasn't.

It was that phone.

The one that quietly held an entire version of me.

The one that knew all of my rituals.

The checking.
The searching.
The hoping.
The wondering.
The tiny pieces of information I convinced myself I needed just to make it through another day.

That phone knew a woman who lived in hypervigilance.

A woman who believed that if she could just gather enough information, she could somehow prepare herself for whatever came next.

Or maybe... somehow suffer less.

I don't know.

When I turned it on, one notification immediately appeared.

For a split second, I forgot what phone I was holding.

I clicked.

And then I saw his name.

My entire body began to shake.

Not my thoughts.

My body.

It startled me.

I just sat there feeling my hands tremble and my chest tighten, thinking...

"Really?"

"After all this time?"

For a brief moment, I felt discouraged.

I wondered if maybe I hadn't healed as much as I thought.

But then something beautiful happened.

Instead of following the feeling...

I watched it.

I didn't open ten different apps.

I didn't start searching.

I didn't spend hours trying to piece together his life.

I simply noticed what my body was doing.

And I realized something that almost made me smile.

My body wasn't asking for Justin.

My body was remembering survival.

That phone had become part of my trauma.

It wasn't just a device.

It had become the place where I discovered painful things.

Where I checked for signs.

Where my nervous system learned that information could change my entire day in a matter of seconds.

Of course my body reacted.

How could it not?

Bodies remember before they understand.

The interesting part came afterward.

For a few minutes, my imagination started doing what imagination always does.

Maybe he has a new phone.

Maybe he doesn't use WhatsApp anymore.

Maybe he lost all our pictures.

Maybe he forgot my number.

Maybe this.
Maybe that.

I could almost feel my mind trying to build an entire story from one tiny piece of information.

Then I laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because I recognized it.

I know this pattern now.

I have spent the last year learning that imagination is both one of God's greatest gifts...

and one of grief's favorite playgrounds.

The truth is, I don't know.

I don't know if he transferred his photos.

I don't know what phone he has.

I don't know what apps he uses.

I don't know how he spends his evenings.

I don't know what he remembers.

And for the first time...

I think I'm finally okay admitting that.

For so long, I believed I needed answers in order to have peace.

Now I wonder if peace begins the moment I stop demanding answers that don't belong to me.

His life is no longer mine to observe.

Mine to interpret.

Mine to monitor.

It has been over a year.

I've been raising our son.

Building a podcast.

Learning how to pray again.

Learning how to sleep again.

Learning how to laugh again.

Life has quietly continued.

Maybe that's why turning on that phone felt so strange.

It wasn't really showing me his life.

It was showing me the woman I used to be.

The woman who thought she had to know everything.

The woman who believed love required vigilance.

The woman who confused awareness with safety.

I looked at that phone today...

and for the first time...

I didn't miss the checking.

I only felt compassion for the woman who thought she needed it.

She was doing the best she could.

But she doesn't live here anymore.

💜