New Year, New Phone, Same Me

In January, my iPhone was confirmed dead by the Apple Store in Saint Laurent du Var. It had gone dark the day prior, unresponsive when I woke up to a New Year in France at my girlfriend’s cousin’s house. I could’ve accepted this as some Sign Apparent, taken a healthy break from connectedness and doubled down on using the rest of my vacation as I’d halfway intended - to decompress from a year of navigating my late twenties as a sober SWM on the periphery of some insular comedy/art scene in Brooklyn. Instead, I used my credit card to get a new iPhone that I’d return for a full refund before flying back to the States, where I had faith Verizon could bring me back to life at little cost. New year, same plan.