Somewhere in the last few years, without deciding to, I stopped being a texter. I’ll type out a message, look at it, and instead of hitting send, I’ll just call. It’s faster, I tell myself. It’s more honest. It’s done in three minutes instead of stretched out over forty.
I didn’t used to be like this. There was a version of me who could text all day, who didn’t mind the gaps, who treated a slow reply as just how communication worked. That version of me is gone, and I’m still figuring out whether that’s a problem or just what happens when you turn 40.
Here’s what I’ve noticed: it’s not the texting itself that bothers me. It’s the waiting. I send something, and then there’s this open loop sitting in my head until it closes. A read receipt with no reply. A message sitting there unanswered for an hour, then two. I used to be able to just move on and not think about it. Now it nags at me in a way it didn’t before.
I don’t think I’m more anxious than I used to be. I think I’ve just gotten less patient with anything that feels like wasted time, and somewhere along the way I started filing “waiting for a text back” under that category. Whether that’s fair or not is a separate question. It’s just what’s happening.
A phone call solves this immediately. You ask the question, you get the answer, and the loop closes right there. No wondering if the message landed wrong, no refreshing, no second-guessing whether I should follow up or if that makes me seem impatient. It’s not that I love talking on the phone. I just can’t stand the in-between anymore.
I’ve started asking myself if this is really about age or if I’m just using age as a convenient explanation. Forty is an easy scapegoat. “I’m getting older” explains away a lot of things that might actually be about something else, like how I value my time now, or how many hours in a day I actually feel like I have left to spend on things that matter to me.
Because that’s really what’s underneath this, I think. Somewhere in my forties I started keeping closer track of time in a way I never did in my twenties or thirties. Not in a morbid way. Just aware of it. And once you start noticing time passing, waiting starts to feel different. A fifteen-minute gap between texts used to be nothing. Now it feels like fifteen minutes I didn’t get to use for anything.
The irony isn’t lost on me. I get frustrated waiting for a reply, so I call instead, and then I get frustrated when someone doesn’t pick up the phone either. I haven’t solved the actual problem. I’ve just moved it somewhere else. The impatience is still there. I just changed the delivery method.
I don’t have this figured out. I know the healthier version of me would be able to send a text and let it exist without checking on it every ten minutes, the same way I’d like to be someone who can sit in a waiting room without pulling out my phone, or stand in a line without feeling like it’s eating into something more important. I’m not there yet. Some days I’m closer than others.
What I do know is that this isn’t really about texting. Texting is just the place where I noticed it first, the small, specific spot where an old habit doesn’t fit the new person I apparently am. If I’m honest, I think I’d rather be the kind of person who can wait without resenting the wait. I’m just not sure yet whether that’s something you learn, or something that comes later, whenever “later” decides to show up.
