In the not-so-distant past, my personal life existed without the use of lots of technology. I didn’t have a home computer or the Internet and my mobile phone was a brick that I could use to ring someone, send them a text message or play snake on. I had a stack of hundreds of CD’s and a little CD player, basic television service and a DVD player.

Three years ago, I got an iPhone 4. I was late to jump on the Apple bandwagon, but being in a relationship with an Apple fanatic and all-round computer geek, I was easily swayed when it came time to renew my contract and decided to upgrade to something awesome.

From the minute I was handed that shiny black handset, I was hooked. Everything it did fascinated me and I spent hours poring over all the brilliant things I could now do that seemed almost space-aged to me before. However tragic it may sound, it became almost like another limb. Wherever I went, it came with me.

With the help of this little device, I kept in contact with everyone who means something to me through phonecalls, text messages, email, FaceTime, Facebook, Twitter… It was the source of laughter as my family and friends shared their stories, and of pain as I was informed of the loss of people that I loved. It helped me to mend broken relationships, and end others.

It shared with me major and local news events, corrected my spelling, told me the time in all the world’s major cities, informed me of the weather and reminded me of important birthdays and appointments.

It allowed me to kill zombies with plants, farm zombies, crush candies, match dots and throw agitated birds of various colours and sizes at green pigs.

It kept me entertained during train and plane journeys. It travelled to Paris, Malaga, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, London, Naples and Amsterdam with me. It joined me on the beach, at the spa, by the pool, in restaurants and nightclubs, the pub and several music gigs.

It encouraged me to watch entire seasons of ‘Drop Dead Diva,’ ‘White Collar,’ documentaries, children’s programmes that made me feel nostalgic and Rom Coms that I knew The Bloke didn’t want to see through the Netflix app.

It took this photograph:

 And this one:

And this:

And this:

And over 10,000 more, which are all stored in random files on my computer.

It allowed me to expand my musical palette, downloading songs that I had previously forgotten. It gave me rock playlists to accompany my shopping trips, easy listening playlists to relax me in the bath, Motown and soul playlists when I needed cheering up. It helped me to downsize my CD collection, creating more space in the house and contributing to local charity shops.

It helped me develop my blog, storing my ideas in the notes section for a later time when I could copy and paste them into a new post.

It was my sanctuary when my brain wouldn’t allow me to sleep at night, and would wake me up during afternoon naps at a weekend.

It recorded every significant moment in my life in the last three years, and still doesn’t bear a single scratch.

Today, it decided that it had had enough, and travelled over the electronic bridge in the sky. I have an image of little wings on it’s back, happily flapping through the air and thinking ‘thank goodness I don’t have to listen to her ramblings anymore.’ I shouldn’t be this attached to a mobile phone, but… I’m gutted.

Goodbye my little phone, we had some good times together.

What about you guys? What piece of technology do you rely on?

You can also find me in Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog, and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks.