How It Went When I Put My iPhone Down at Bedtime

It didn't go well, the first night of not cradling my iPhone in bed for one last long scroll before I went to sleep.

I went to bed by 11:15ish and couldn't fall asleep until 4 a.m. I read a couple enjoyable chapters of the Nancy Drew The Clue of the Tapping Heels that I got from the library when I took Punch there Friday. Love reading about Nancy, Bess, George, the convertible, River Heights and the repeated use of the term young sleuth.

I texted good night to Fig and Sis [and my editor, who had texted] before I went up to bed. I sent a long work email to schedule an in-person interview for tomorrow. But I tossed and turned in bed. I guess it's like any other withdrawal. I wanted to check my email to see if there were work replies. I wanted to google some celebrity, but now I forget which one, after 4 short hours of sleep. [Alarm went off 8 a.m. for Harry Potter camp.]

I started wondering if this divorced dad I know in town--whom Punch and I saw at the steering wheel on our amble back from the pool at 8 p.m. last night--was heading out on a date in that nice blue collared shirt and polished car. How was the pool? he asked us. I had our towels swung around my neck.

Then, I reviewed several months of the relationship I had with someone before I met H. The memory reel was repetitive and crazy. In my mind, I surfed through the restaurant dates, the comments made, his shorts, the visits to my Ocean Grove apartment, the road trips, the phone calls, the icy comment his mother made upon meeting me, the flowers he brought to my grandmother on Easter, the little old lady we drove to Mass once. The big red heart box of valentine chocolates, the heartfelt letters I wrote and cannot retrieve, the odd way he broke up with me.

Then H. rolled over onto his stomach and I felt his knee near me, and that brought me comfort.

Then I decided I was hungry. But there was nothing to eat except cold Chinese shrimp and rice and some crackers with butter and a little peanut butter and a glass of milk, so I had all that, sitting alone under the pendant lamp in a darkened neighborhood, thinking that my neighbors could look in and see me if they wanted to, sitting alone in the breakfast nook. Conscious that I did feel hungry, was not not just trying to fill a spiritual emptiness.

Then, lo and behold, I went to open the stuck window in the dining room to let the breeze in overnight and there was the pack of dark chocolate mint Ghirardelli squares I bought before a July Fourth party for Punchy. I had four of those while watching Lesley Stahl talk on TV about her new book about being a grandmother; interesting.

I finally fell asleep.

Today is a long-planned day with Moey and Lorraine at the beach. We have been friends since our ages were single digits.

I may have also been anxious about my work deadlines.

Does my iPhone really protect me from all that, like a soothing bedtime story?

Have a good day.