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My oldest daughter was talking to my wife and I the other day, and she mentioned how strange it is that we don’t have our location services turned on for each other. As in, we only know where the other will be based on what that person tells us.
Apparently, for my kids’ generation, it makes complete sense to know where loved ones and friends are at all times. I hear my one daughter checking on the other and saying stuff like, “Oh, she just left Target. She should be home in about five minutes.” My wife always knows where my two older daughters are based on their phones, so it’s not like either one of us is a total privacy prude.
On a certain level, it makes sense for a spouse to know where the other is. And, as my daughter said, what are you hiding?
The truth is, I’m not hiding anything. I have some old-school notions about privacy, and I don’t see the need to have GPS tracking my wife or me. I certainly understand a parent following along with a younger kid to know what they are up to. But for the most part, with any other adult, I want to have the kind of relationship where I have faith in what you say to me, and I want you to have that faith in me, too.
Let me back up to the privacy thing for a second… I am pretty adamant about reasonable levels of privacy. I just don’t love the creep of technology into our lives and how inescapable it can feel—I always ask myself, do I own a phone or does a phone own me? Adding in a layer where my phone is broadcasting my whereabouts just feels unnecessary to me. For me, it’s about boundaries. But to each their own.
Again, I have zero to hide—I live a boring sober life these days. I can’t think of a time in years, maybe a decade, where I didn’t go where I said I was going to go. Now, if I had a relationship where I worried about my spouse’s behavior or they worried about mine, that’s totally different, and I also don’t think I am beyond that. Hell, the reason I am writing this is because if I had an iPhone during my active addiction days, I can almost guarantee my wife would have wanted to know my whereabouts, because I lied almost every day about what I was up to.
I don’t live like that any more, and I had a very proud moment when my wife said to my daughter, “I don’t need Dad to have his location turned on.” I honestly was a little surprised—if she had brought up that she would rather know where I am, I’d probably do that because, again, I have nothing to hide. But instead, she said she didn’t care, and I had to pat myself on the pack a bit because that’s 17 years of telling the truth. She doesn’t need a tracker on my ass any more, and that’s pretty cool.
Now don’t get me started on how often I am tracking a package that is apparently lost in the mail and not arriving by Christmas Day…
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
One day a skid-row drunk collapses on the street and a large crowd gathers around him. They all try to be helpful.
“Give him a drink of whiskey,” says one lady.
“Stand back and give him some air,” a man shouts.
“Give him the whiskey,” the lady insists.
“Call an ambulance!” someone yells.
Suddenly the drunk sits up and hollers, “For Pete’s sake, shut up and listen to the lady!”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, October 2001, Dick L. from New Westminster, British Columbia)
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