The Good Old Days?

I miss this phone:

Crazy, right?  Why do I even remember a decade-old piece of technology that can, in this day and age, barely even be referred to as 'technology' with a straight face?

The answer is: I'm not really sure. 

We were talking about old phones at the office today and when I got to this one I had a visceral feeling of loss at the sight of it.  I was genuinely sad and just sat and looked at this picture for a long time.  I don't have any specific memories of this phone; like a time the phone and I went bungee jumping or back-packed across Europe together or anything like that.  But it was like seeing a picture of a close friend who you have grown apart from.  And that is probably the source of my inexplicably strong reaction to this lump of plastic that just makes phone calls (that's it, no internet, no text messages, just phone calls.  And a calculator.): that this thing was the connection to a lot of people who were very important to me at the time who I no longer have any contact with today. 

On the other hand, I have plenty of good reasons (read: near death experiences, attempted felonies, binge drinking, etc) to distance myself from these people and besides, people grow apart all the time.  It's just a part of life.  I rarely ever give it a second thought.  And why would I only be upset by the sight of this phone and not any of the countless other personal communication devices that I have had prior or since?

Again, I'm not really sure.

This is probably just another symptom of my advanced age, along with sobbing uncontrollably at the stories of hardship and sacrifice relentlessly broadcast during Olympic season and having to admit to my supervisor (without a shred of dishonesty) that I can't be at work this morning because of a podiatrist appointment. 

Or maybe it's just the fact that I'm at an age where the list of people who have been pushed to the wayside and left behind is getting longer and longer and the list of people I choose to spend my limited amounts of free time with is getting shorter and shorter.