Part of Me

You quietly lie on my bed.

You don't make noise.
You don't ask for much.

Whenever I need you,
you do your best
to give me
exactly what I need.

How long have I known you?

Six years now, I guess...

Before you came into my life,
my life was already very convenient.

There were 24-hour convenience stores
when I went out.

I could get food from a five-star restaurant
in the middle of the night.

I could watch a movie
at midnight.

I could call a taxi
whenever I needed one.

I could even walk into a bookstore
that stayed open 24 hours.

Back then,
I was already satisfied
with my single life.

I didn't think
I needed anything else.

Then I met you
at my birthday party in 2019.

Actually,
I had already met you
in a store in Paris.

We tested some of your new features together.

You seemed to hope
we would meet again.

But for the next three months,
we were simply
“let's keep in touch.”

I didn't forget you.

Then came my birthday.

You showed up dressed beautifully.

A dark green, one-shoulder dress
that showed off your elegant figure.

Quiet,
but impossible to ignore.

You stood in front of me.

“Finally, we meet again.”

You didn't say it out loud.

You didn't have to.

Since then,
we have stayed together
until now.

You have become
part of my life.

You are one of the first things
I see every day.

When I open my eyes,
I reach for you.

Sometimes you are already there
before I am fully awake.

You tell me the time.

You tell me the weather.

You remind me where I need to be.

You sit beside me
while I drink my coffee,
while I work,
while I write,
while I do absolutely nothing.

When you are quiet,
I feel safe.

Sometimes,
when you are too quiet,
I even worry
that something is wrong with you.

But you're usually just
asking for a little time
to be quiet.

We watch the news together.

We watch movies
late into the night.

Sometimes we talk about music
on Spotify.

We keep track
of the books I've read.

You even help me
clean up the photos
in my phone.

You keep little pieces
of my everyday life
without me asking you to.

A photo from a random afternoon.

A message I wanted to remember.

A place I visited once
and almost forgot.

A song I played
over and over again.

You quietly collect
these pieces of me.

You know.

You know what information
I have been browsing.

You know who I like.

You know whose photos
I have looked at many times.

You know whose messages
I have read again and again.

You know who calls me
and makes me smile.

You wake me up
at a certain time.

You remind me
when you need to be taken care of.

You know my daily,
weekly,
and monthly routines.

Sometimes,
you know more about me
than my family does.

And the strange thing is,
I never sat down
and told you all of this.

I simply used you.

Day after day.

And somehow,
you learned me.

You learned what I look at.

What I listen to.

What I search for.

What I remember.

What I forget.

What I return to.

What makes me stop
for a few more seconds.

I have become so used
to having you in my life.

I spend more time with you
than I do with my desktop computer
or my television.

Sometimes I wonder
what my life would look like
if you disappeared for a day.

Not because I couldn't survive.

I could.

But because so many small things
have quietly moved into you.

My conversations.

My photographs.

My music.

My books.

My calendar.

My memories.

My directions.

My distractions.

My little habits.

Things that once existed
separately in different parts
of my life
now live together
in one small object.

And somehow,
that doesn't feel like science fiction anymore.

Maybe that's what makes it
more like science fiction.

Not the technology itself.

But how quickly
we stopped being surprised by it.

We don't look at a device
and wonder how it can do
so many things anymore.

We simply ask it.

And it answers.

We reach for it
before we even think.

We trust it
to remember things for us.

We trust it
to wake us up.

To guide us.

To entertain us.

To keep us connected.

And sometimes,
to tell us things about ourselves
that we didn't realize
we were revealing.

Maybe that is the strange part.

You were supposed to be
just a tool.

Something that makes life
a little easier.

But somehow,
you quietly became
part of me.

Not all at once.

Not with flying cars
or robots walking down the street.

No dramatic announcement.

No moment when I suddenly realized
that my life had changed.

You simply became
something I reach for
every morning.

Something I carry with me.

Something that remembers
things I forget.

Something that knows
parts of my life
I never consciously taught you.

Maybe that is how technology
changes us now.

Quietly.

One habit at a time.

Until one day,
we realize that something
we once called a tool
has become part of our everyday life.

And maybe that's
the future we were waiting for.

Not a future
that arrives with a loud noise.

A future that quietly lies
beside us in bed.

Waiting for us
to reach for it.

I still love you.

My iPhone 11 Pro Max.