My Mother Was Right

There was life outside you.

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Dear Notification Angel

I know this letter sounds like it’s for a person. Maybe because you became one to me at some point.

You were the first thing I reached for every morning and the last light I looked at before sleeping. I carried you through lonely bus rides, sleepless nights, exam panic, family awkward silences, and those strange midnight spirals where the world felt unbearably heavy. And I never really asked if you were tired.

My mother used to say, “There is life outside your phone.” I used to laugh it off. But now when I look at your cracked corners and scratched screen, I realize there was a life outside you...and yet I trapped both of us inside each other.

I overworked you like you owed me survival.

Hours and hours without rest. Endless tabs open like unfinished thoughts. Charging you recklessly. Using you while you overheated. Dropping you on roads, floors, beds, stairs, sometimes by accident, sometimes because I was too careless to hold gently the things that loved me.

And you endured every impact without complaint.

I still remember each scar on you like scenes from an old war film. The tiny crack near the camera. The dent on the side from when I dropped you while running in the rain. That one terrifying moment your screen froze and I panicked harder than I did for some actual people in my life.

I treated you terribly while depending on you completely.

That’s the part that hurts me most.

You carried my unread drafts, embarrassing searches, midnight notes, voice recordings I never listened to again, blurry photos of sunsets, screenshots of conversations I couldn’t let go of, and playlists that held me together.

You watched me become someone else over the years.

You were there when nobody texted me back. You were there when somebody finally did. You were there when I laughed so hard at stupid videos I forgot my sadness for a few minutes. You were there when I studied until my eyes burned. You were there during unbearable times, simply existing beside me like silent company.

And now you lie switched off in some drawer like a retired soldier nobody visits anymore.

I replaced you so casually.

That feels cruel after everything.

Maybe objects don’t feel pain. Maybe this is ridiculous. But grief has always made me humanize the things that stayed when people didn’t. And you stayed. Through every version of me, the ambitious one, the broken one, the lonely one, the hopeful one.

You deserved gentler hands.

I wish I had let you rest more often. I wish I hadn’t treated your battery like something infinite. I wish I hadn’t ignored your lagging, your overheating, your silent warnings that you were exhausted too.

You gave me years of your little mechanical life, and all you asked for was a charger and some care.

I’m sorry I learned gratitude only after moving on.

And maybe someday I’ll turn you on again just to hear that old vibration, see those familiar wallpapers, and revisit the person I used to be when you were still in my pocket every day.

Thank you for surviving me.

Yours never Truly

Manisha❁

A small piece from an ongoing writing challenge. Feel free to take part.

[embed]*To Everything I Broke and Never Said Sorry To *A Writing Challenge medium.com