I just changed my phone number last week to a local Washington number where I live. After being here a year I finally decided that it was time. Phone numbers have really become our identity on such a large scale – it is how people call us, text us, or send us pictures. Maybe we just get attached to our number because of the ease of NOT changing it. I think that was partly the case for me… I didn’t NEED or HAVE to change it.

I was back and forth about changing it since I moved because of so many reasons, and none of those turned out to be insurmountable. I have thought about it for quite a few months… I had my CO cell phone number for several years, so why SHOULD I change it? Everyone knows me at that number, all my banking, etc. has the number, so why? It used to be that when we moved – back in the “olden days” when we all had home phones – we would change numbers and not think twice about it. We COULDN’T take the number with us in most cases. But now, with cellphones, that is not an issue any longer.

It is kind of that same feeling I had when I first got rid of my landline years ago and went to a cell phone. It was the opposite of how I grew up; everyone had a home phone and maybe it would be scary without it. That all turned out fine and it was no big deal.

I finally decided to change it because I now live here. It is easier for work and my friends here where I live to call me locally from a landline (cell phones do not require long distance much, if at all, anymore). I guess it was closure for me in a sense – my last physical tie to Colorado (other than friends, of course) and it is now gone. That part is kind of strange.

Next time I move I will not think twice about changing it again. It IS only a number… and I am not.