I'll Call You Back Later

In 2016 I put my phone on do not disturb and never looked back.

If you’ve tried to call me in the last decade, I missed it. Sorry.

Sometimes I see the missed calls quickly. Other times, it will be hours or the next day. And sometimes I sit there and watch it ring silently, but don’t pick it up.

I paid for ringtones in college. I don’t remember them all. I do remember the last one was Expecto Patronum (trap remix) by Goblins from Mars. I still have it even though it is silly. It has stayed with me for a decade because one day I didn’t realize I was turning the sound off on my phone for the last time.

My phone lives in silence and I live with it.

I lose it constantly. I set it down somewhere that makes perfect sense in the moment and then that logic evaporates. The kitchen counter. The bathroom. The car. I check the spawn spots over and over but it is somewhere random.

I ping it from another device while it lights up wherever it is, which is always nearby and never visible. We are both participating in a situation neither of us plans to resolve quickly.

Speaking of things I take and then immediately lose, I am sorry for every pen I have ever touched.

Work pens. Home pens. Pens from cups that were meant to be shared but clearly curated by someone who believed they would remain in that cup. I take one. I use it. I set it down. It is gone.

I don’t look for them anymore. I accept that pens pass through me. I treat pens like rough drafts. They exist briefly and then disappear.

Speaking of work, I am sorry for every lesson plan I have turned in that looked like I wrote it right before it was due, because I did.

They are vague. They never explain my why, or give multiple examples of the same thing, or fill in every little blank. When I reference books, it isn’t the full title but the abbreviations that make sense to me. I may as well have written my lesson on a napkin.

If you come into my classroom, I know what I am doing. I know my students. I can build something in the moment that works. A type B teacher is a damn good teacher and my door is always open.

The document is a suggestion. The room is the reality.

You are welcome for the room.

I am sorry for being five minutes late to every professional development meeting I have ever attended.

A consistent amount of late that suggests effort and failure at the same time.

I’m sorry for suggesting the meeting could have been an email.

I walk in with coffee. I feel like that matters.

I am sorry for every text and email I have answered completely in my head and then never sent.

In my mind I am excellent at communication. I am prompt. I am thoughtful. I follow up. I say the right thing.

In reality I read your message, I compose a full response internally, I feel the completion of that action, and then I close the app.

You’re still waiting. I’m already done.

I am sorry to my body for the way I treat sleep like it is optional when I have a good idea.

Three in the morning feels like a reasonable time to begin something important. It feels clear. It feels necessary. It feels like the only time my brain is working the way I want it to.

The next day exists anyway.

I’m sorry for every time I have gotten deep into a book and stayed up all night without meaning to. I always think I will stop at the next chapter. I do not stop at the next chapter. I stop when the book is finished or when the sun comes up.

Both feel like a choice I made on purpose.

And I’m sorry for how all of this keeps lining up the same way.

For the way everything feels immediate or not real at all. For the way I can be completely inside one thing while everything else waits outside of it. For the missed calls, the lost pens, the half-finished plans, the late arrivals, the unsent messages, the nights that stretch into mornings.

I keep thinking I will come back to all of it.

I keep thinking I will fix it in one clean motion.

I keep thinking I will turn the sound back on and start answering.

I haven’t. I probably won’t.

Sorry about that.