We've been together for about 10 years now. I had never planned on a long-term relationship at the beginning, but somehow we lingered on. I felt that we had been through so much together that I have had great difficulty in moving on. I am wary of my expected separation anxiety.
From the beginning, I was instantly attracted. Sparks flew. Something so compelling that I felt helplessly drawn in. Synapses firing and oxytocin flowing, I was overcome with desire. This lead me to co-dependency -- I couldn't be alone. We did everything together: ate, slept, talked for hours, texted, emailed, and entertained each other. Along the way, I forgave all of the unreliable times, i.e. breakdowns, communication problems, whether home or traveling. I stayed loyal and put countless hours into understanding and accepting each challenge to forgive and forget. While I was "first into" this relationship, I realized that I was now "last out." Time to move on, no matter how I tried to justify my attachment. We had given it a good run of more than 10 years, I had been loyal, (no matter how foolish) to my first love, and first mobile device, my beloved Blackberry.
Always the tech-y girl, I was one of the "first in" to have a Blackberry in my circle of suburban moms. In fact, I remember one of my friends exclaimed, "You are a man!" when she first saw it in my hand. But, the familiar QWERTY keyboard felt so right the first time that I used it. I became so myopic that no matter what happened, I didn't stray. lt's safe to say that I have had a minimum of 25-30 RIM devices over the years including the Pearl, Curve, Storm, Bold, Torch, etc. I've endured endless hardware problems including stuck down keys, port problems, battery-charging issues, and more. I have spent endless hours at the Verizon store in countless cities in the U.S. and around the world with enterprise server connection problems, "service books" needing to be rebooted, and even became very friendly with the employees at nearby Verizon locations. They knew me by name.
I remember when President Obama made headlines with his self-proclaimed "clingy-ness" to his Blackberry. The president made the Blackberry "cool" and his use validated the Blackberry's security features and usability. In January 2009, Stephanie Clifford of The New York Times wrote that Obama's Blackberry comments were akin to a celebrity endorsement worth an estimated $25 million! Even Madonna admitted to sleeping with her Blackberry in hand.
But, as I have written before, technology is indeed a fad, and tech products each have a life cycle. It's downright embarrassing to pull out my Blackberry from my bag especially for business! So, I have decided not to wait until the end of January to see the new RIM offerings. It's time for a change.
I am woefully due for an upgrade and have accepted that it's time for the "funeral for a friend." Now, I look toward the future with excitement and enthusiasm. Whereas I have avoided perfecting my "swipe" for so long, I see that my typing days are numbered. Now I am "last in" to an OS ( operating system) device but will keep my eyes open to be "first out" when the OS device is nearing its own inevitable end. I am thankful to my friend Andy for teaching me the word "swipe" after watching me do the "swipe" gesture in the air over and over again. "Does 'this' have a name?," I asked him with annoyance. Never again, I vow -- I won't allow myself to become attached to my device so as to be open to future models.
Stay tuned to learn about how I will find my new "match" that meets my new profile and expectations. I can no longer seek a long-term relationship again but now will shop around for "a friend with benefits."