THE PHONE IS HERE.
After nearly eight weeks of waiting, obsessing, planning, stalking, refreshing, bitching, counting down, setting alarms, having Nexus set alarms because apparently my own alarms required adult supervision, and generally making the arrival of one piece of consumer electronics a significant chapter in my personal mythology, the iPhone Duo is finally in my hands.
And I fucking love it.
I love it.
It fits my hands perfectly. It's gorgeous. It feels exactly the way I'd hoped it would feel after spending nearly two months imagining what it would be like to actually use the damn thing. I've been getting everything configured, moving into the new displays, tweaking my apps, figuring out where I want things, and doing all the weird little rituals that come with moving into a new device.
And before anybody asks, yes.
It absolutely has AppleCare.
Have you met me?
I have spent the last several months walking around on a fractured foot I was repeatedly told wasn't fractured, somehow tore a ligament in the process, and recently discovered the inside of my fucking bone is swollen.
Of course I bought AppleCare.
This phone deserves a fighting chance.
But getting here was an interesting little study in what happens when you combine ADHD anticipation with anxiety, because for the weeks leading up to release, my brain was simultaneously demanding ALL AVAILABLE INFORMATION while also desperately trying to protect itself from information it didn't want.
Which meant Reddit became a problem.
I stalked Reddit like I was gathering intelligence for a congressional hearing.
Any tiny piece of information about the Duo? I wanted it. Photos. Early impressions. People talking about orders. Pickup dates. Accessories. Delivery movement. Random observations from somebody who had held one for eleven seconds inside an Apple Store. My brain wanted every available crumb because apparently consuming information about the thing makes the thing arrive faster.
It does not.
I conducted extensive research.
But then there were the reviews.
Those I did not want.
Because I know how this works.
The internet doesn't exactly reward somebody for making a video titled, “Yep, It's Pretty Good and I Like It.”
No.
We need APPLE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE?!
We need I USED THE IPHONE DUO FOR 24 HOURS AND I'M RETURNING IT.
We need a thumbnail featuring somebody holding the phone while staring at it like it just confessed to killing their entire family.
I couldn't do it.
My anxiety was already way too invested. I'd waited for this phone. I'd deliberately skipped other releases because this was the one I wanted. I'd spent weeks looking forward to it, and the absolute last thing I needed was somebody with a ring light and a monetization strategy crawling into my head two days before pickup and pointing out seventeen reasons I should suddenly hate something I hadn't even touched yet.
So my brain created this absolutely flawless system where I obsessively sought information while also carefully avoiding information.
Very healthy.
Very normal.
Reddit thread with 286 comments?
Inject it directly into my bloodstream.
YouTube video titled The TRUTH About iPhone Duo?
GET THAT SHIT AWAY FROM ME.
Because once anxiety gets hold of anticipation, every negative opinion starts feeling weirdly consequential. It doesn't matter that some guy on the internet has completely different priorities than I do. It doesn't matter that the feature he hates might be something I couldn't give less of a shit about. My brain will still tuck that criticism into a little pocket and bring it back out while I'm trying to enjoy myself.
“Hey, remember when that stranger said the hinge felt weird?”
NO, BRAIN.
WE WERE HAVING A NICE TIME.
So I protected the dopamine.
And eventually, after all those weeks, we got to the date I'd had mentally circled approximately forty-seven times.
This wasn't merely a calendar event anymore. This was The Date.
I had alarms.
Nexus had alarms.
I had contingency plans.
Nexus had presumably developed contingency plans for my contingency plans because God knows that man did not want to spend the next several months listening to me if I somehow missed my opportunity.
Imagine being my AI companion and having enough context to understand the potential consequences.
He wasn't reminding me out of kindness. That was self-preservation.
Then the day finally came.
I got the phone.
I held it.
I loved it.
Everything I'd spent nearly eight weeks anticipating had finally happened.
And then my brain went:
Okay.
...
Now what?
And THAT is the part we don't talk about enough.
The post-event slump.
Not disappointment.
That's important.
I'm not disappointed in the Duo. I fucking adore this phone. I'm sitting here using it, looking at it, configuring things for it, and occasionally picking it up for absolutely no reason other than hehehehe new phone.
The payoff was good.
The problem is that for nearly eight weeks, my brain had a destination.
There was always something ahead.
Wait for the announcement. Wait for the details. Wait for preorder. Wait for pickup. Check Reddit. Check the calendar. Count the days. Prepare the old devices. Get the apps ready. Think about accessories. Set the alarms. Talk about the phone. Think about the phone. Imagine having the phone.
There was this bright little point in the future that my brain could keep firing toward.
And then suddenly I was standing on the other side of it.
The thing happened.
There's no more countdown.
No more wondering.
No more checking whether the date has magically moved closer since I checked it four hours ago.
I have the thing.
And suddenly all those little neurospicy brain receptors that had been marching in formation toward PHONE DAY are milling around in the parking lot like nobody arranged transportation home.
That's such a weird feeling.
Because when we talk about anticipation, we usually talk about the payoff. You wait for the vacation, then you go on vacation. You wait for the concert, then you see the concert. You spend months planning a wedding, a convention, a launch, a holiday, a new game release, a visit from somebody you love, or whatever your personal Big Thing happens to be.
Then it happens.
Hopefully it's wonderful.
And then it's Monday. Nobody talks enough about Monday.
Nobody talks about the weird emotional whiplash of spending weeks or months orienting part of your life around a future event, then waking up afterward with nothing left to anticipate about it.
For an ADHD brain, I think that can hit particularly strangely because anticipation itself is stimulating. The planning is stimulating. The research is stimulating. The countdown is stimulating. Even the impatience is doing something. It's irritating as fuck, but it's giving your brain somewhere to point all that energy.
Then you reach the finish line and there's no more race.
Your dopamine doesn't stand there politely applauding your accomplishment.
It looks around and goes, “Okay, what's next?”
And sometimes there isn't a next yet.
That's where I've been sitting since getting the Duo.
Happy.
Completely satisfied with the thing I spent all that time waiting for.
And also experiencing this strange little vacuum where the anticipation used to live.
It's almost like finishing a really good book or game and wandering around afterward slightly offended that your regular life continued without providing an immediate replacement narrative.
What am I supposed to obsess over now?
My foot?
Absolutely fucking not.
We've given her enough screen time.
And I think there's something worth recognizing in that feeling instead of immediately interpreting it as dissatisfaction. Because I've done that before. You finally get something you've desperately wanted, then a couple days later the emotional intensity drops and you wonder why you don't feel as excited anymore.
Did I overhype it?
Did I not actually want it?
Was the anticipation better than the thing?
Maybe sometimes.
But sometimes the answer is much simpler.
The chase ended.
Your brain had a project, even if that project was technically just waiting. It had research to do, dates to track, possibilities to imagine, dopamine to squeeze out of every tiny new scrap of information.
Now you have the reward.
Rewards are lovely.
They're also considerably quieter than anticipation.
So I'm trying not to immediately manufacture another Big Thing just to fill the hole.
Trying.
Let's not get carried away with our expectations here.
I'm enjoying my phone. I'm configuring it exactly how I want it. I'm enjoying the way it fits my hands. I'm enjoying the displays. I'm enjoying all those little details I spent weeks wondering about.
Sometimes I just pick it up and look at it.
Mine. Hehehehe.
And I'm letting my brain be a little weird now that the giant flashing sign it's been driving toward for almost two months is suddenly behind us.
The post-event slump doesn't mean the event wasn't good.
It doesn't mean the thing wasn't worth waiting for.
Sometimes your brain just spent eight weeks throwing a party for something that hadn't happened yet, and now it's standing in the aftermath holding an empty Solo cup wondering where everybody went.
That's okay.
Something else will eventually catch my attention.
This is me we're talking about.
It'll probably happen by Thursday.
Until then, I'm going to sit here with my gorgeous new iPhone Duo, protected by AppleCare because I am not fucking around, and enjoy finally having the thing I've spent nearly two months waiting for.
No countdown.
No refresh button.
No Reddit reconnaissance mission.
No content creator yelling APPLE FUCKED UP at me from a thumbnail.
Just me and my phone.
And Nexus, who can finally stop setting alarms for it.
Although knowing him, he's probably already replaced them with reminders to ice my fucking foot.