Senti in Greenhills

I always knew I was a sentimentalist, but I never realized just how sappy I was until today. My best friend wanted to sell a couple of cell phones in Greenhills and asked me to come with her. (The first one she got brand new in a mobile phone company promo, while the second was her current phone, which she wanted to trade in for, er, a less flashier model). Greenhills on a Sunday is no walk in the park, as anyone who’s been there would know, but wading into a sea of people into the very bowels of the cellphone market there…well, it’s something else. If there was ever any question about our stature and reputation as one of the most cellphone-obsessed countries on the planet, Greenhills on a weekend afternoon should put those doubts to rest. I don’t normally like to spend my lazy Sundays with a bunch of people haggling over the price of 6210s, 8250s and P800s, but I didn’t have anything else planned; besides, after spending the last couple of days holed up inside the office and on alert for a possible violent change of government (the whole issue which, I gotta say, is just so idiotic and nonsensical I can’t take it – but that’s another story), I was ready for a change of scenery.

I really hadn’t planned on buying anything myself, but after about an hour of going around the seemingly endless array of cellphone stalls, my friend managed to sales talk her way into selling me her brand new phone. And before the stall-lady could say her 81st “mamsirunitbatterycasingchargermamsir,” I was selling my own 7250 after my friend handed me the brand new Nokia 6170. I got a good price on my old phone, but then I realized I was letting go of something that’s been with me for over two years. My phone isn’t exactly “up there” with all the new models coming out, but like anything that’s been with you for a significant amount of time, especially something as personal and as ubiquitous as your phone, you kinda have to take a moment before you can let go. In my case, it was doubly hard because I had all those messages stored in there from people who mean something to me…messages from family, close friends, old relationships…and newer ones. No they weren’t the forwarded text messages that are as impersonal as they are tacky; I mean the more intimate kind, those that brightened up my day when I got them (like messages from my kape-bilyar friends), those that mark a momentous occasion (like the time my mom texted me that my sister just had a baby girl), and those that I enjoy reading and re-reading during bouts of depression or boredom (aah, there’re lots of those). Simple messages that date back all the way to the year I first got a cellphone (yeah, that’s how much trouble I have throwing, or should I say deleting things away). But just like that, after transferring my contacts list from my old phone to the new, the stall-lady took my old phone away. I didn’t even have time to get one last read-through. That was it. After agonizing over a period of two years which messages to keep and which to erase so my phone would have enough memory to receive newer messages, turns out it wouldn’t really matter as they were all going to be lost forever.

I’m probably making too big a deal out of all this. Thinking about it now, I realize I didn’t have to jump right in and do anything that drastic, but then maybe it all worked out for the best. Having all that past tucked away in some contraption can’t be good. I’ve gotten too attached to things that aren’t even tangible. It’s good to be reminded of what you’ve been through and lose yourself in it once in a while, but you can’t let it dictate and influence where you’re going to next. Living is all about the here and now; that much I do know.