My Apple watch is slowly dying. Its imminent demise manifests itself in an inability to hold a charge, which means that intermittently in the afternoon when I look down to tell the time I am greeted with a blank, black stare. My watch is eight years old, its age unforgettable because my husband bought it for me the year I was in aveilus for my father. His death had left me untethered, disconnected; the watch promised connection – no more missed phone calls and texts delivered instantly to my wrist.
During my first few years of watch ownership, I would get phantom zings on my wrist even when I didn’t wear it, a very disconcerting phenomenon that almost made me trash the watch because I didn’t want to become addicted to it. But I did become addicted to it, not to the technology of it but to the thought of it, to the thought that this was in some way connecting me to my father as well.
I’m sad that my watch is fading, although its slow expiration is giving me time to think about whether I want to replace it with a newer, better model. I’m really not sure what I’m going to do because some things are irreplaceable.
