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(Originally written: September 28, 2020)

I cancelled my Journey subscription since it hadn’t delivered on the promise to bring me happiness. In the year I had them, they had given me exclusive deals to meditation retreats, taken me skydiving, submarine riding, spelunking, and so on. You name it and I’ve probably done it. Journey has given me many stories and lines to impress people (women). I said as much when I was filling out the ‘Cancel Subscription’ form. At the end of it they said they would be sending me one more package, free of any charge, as a thank you for being a loyal customer. It had made me chuckle. A year was enough to be called loyal?

It arrived a few days later and I opened it expecting an all expense paid trip to Thailand or something like that. But instead it was a phone. I turned it on while frowning, impatiently waiting for it to do so. When it finally did, I was greeted with the lock screen. It got me to smile, albeit with confusion, when I recognized the picture as the one I had taken of the Grand Canyon. I shrugged and unlocked it and saw that the home screen was my view from the top of Pike’s Peak. While using Journey, I had been requested take pictures of the places I went to and the people I met and post them to my Journey account. Voluntarily, of course. So this phone was meant to be a time capsule since I didn’t have my account any more? Pretty nice of them.

Curious to relive some memories, I opened the photos app. Journey had kindly organized the photos by date and location, starting with my first time riding a horse. I selected the album and laughed, hard, when I saw that the first picture was me being bucked from the horse. The trainer, Ashley, had even put me on the nicest horse they had and I had managed to irritate it enough to throw me. Luckily for me I had only gotten a little bruised.

I spent two hours looking through all the pictures and watching all the videos I had taken. At the end of it, I held the phone in a loose grip and smiled at the home screen. I had been riled up into a feeling of restlessness so I opted to fidget with the phone some more. See what else it had.

I was immediately disappointed when I saw that it only had the default apps you get when you first buy a phone. Settings, maps, etc. I sighed and idly clicked on the phone app. It opened to the contacts section and my eyebrows raised when I saw that it was already filled with names and numbers. I scanned the list quickly and realized all the contacts were people I had met during my trips and outings. Even the ones I hadn’t thought to add on Instagram.

I put the phone down with it still unlocked and showing me the contact list. It’d be weird, right? To just call these people? Presumably they had agreed to let their information be shared. Either that or Journey was about to face some lawsuits. My eyes wandered around the room as I thought about what to do and eventually landed on the box the phone had come in. On the side, in shiny silver letters, was written:

Life’s about the…

Ah. I picked up the phone and called the first number.