My phone was face down on the table. That was my compromise. Not away, not silent, just face down. And i still found myself aware of it the whole time. Still half somewhere else even while sitting directly across from someone who had shown up specifically to spend time with me.
I think about that more than i should because that person is not in my life anymore. And i cannot go back and give them the attention i was splitting between them and a screen that probably had nothing on it that mattered.
We have gotten very comfortable with partial presence. With being physically somewhere while mentally distributed across notifications and threads and things we meant to check earlier. And the people across from us feel it even when they do not say anything. There is a texture to a conversation where someone is fully there and a completely different texture to one where they are mostly there but keeping one foot somewhere else.
Full attention is rarer than it used to be. Which means it is also more valuable than it used to be. Giving someone your complete undivided presence, not performing it, actually doing it, is one of the more quietly generous things one human being can offer another.
It says something words do not always manage to say. It says you are the most important thing in this moment. Not the notifications, not the thought i was carrying from earlier today, not the thing i need to do after this. You, right now, are what i am choosing.
I am still working on this. The phone reflex is real and trained deep. But i catch myself faster now. Put it away properly instead of face down on the table like it does not count as a distraction.
The people in your life are not always going to be there. The screen will always be there, waiting, with something else to look at.
Choose the people while you still can.
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