The Day I Stopped Looking at Other People’s Phones

I finally did it after years of hovering on the edge and watching from the sidelines, and even now it feels strange to say it out loud that I am finally an Apple user and that I bought an iPhone 17 Pro.

For a long time, this was only a quiet dream that lived in the background of my working life. When I first started working, it felt like almost everyone around me already had expensive cellphones, and they carried them with an ease that made it seem completely normal. My colleagues would place their phones on the table during breaks or meetings, and I could not help but see them as upgraded professionals, as people who had reached a level I had not yet touched.

That was when the thought of owning an iPhone first settled in me, not loudly or urgently, but in a way that lingered and stayed. It became one of those unspoken wants you carry quietly, the kind you hesitate to name because you are not sure if wanting it is reasonable or shallow or even allowed.

Over time, the habit followed me outside of work. Whenever I was out, I noticed what phones people were holding, whether in cafés, on public transport, or while waiting in lines, and without meaning to I started making small calculations in my head. I wondered what kind of job they had, how long they had been working, and how they could afford what they were carrying, and it was not admiration exactly and not envy either, but something in between that I never fully learned how to name.

Back then, I often told myself that I did not need an iPhone, and that was true for who I was at the time. I was surviving, focusing on responsibilities, choosing what was practical and necessary over what felt indulgent, and slowly building stability in the only way I knew how.

Still, there were moments of self-pity that arrived quietly and without explanation. There were days when I wondered why I always seemed to be choosing later, upgrading later, and arriving later than everyone else, and I never really talked about it because I could not even explain to myself why it mattered as much as it did.

Now, I finally have my own.

What surprised me was how quietly everything shifted after that. I stopped scanning rooms to see what people were holding in their hands, and I stopped doing mental math about other people’s lives and incomes. The comparison faded without effort, and the self-pity loosened its grip, not because my life suddenly transformed, but because I no longer felt like I was standing outside something I wanted.

Buying this phone is not about status and it is not about keeping up, but about recognizing that I am no longer in the same place I was when the dream first started. I am no longer just surviving, and I am allowed to choose ease where I can without feeling the need to justify it.

Unboxing it surprised me in a way I did not expect, and I felt genuinely giddy and excited, like I was holding something I had imagined for so long and could finally touch. I caught myself smiling at the smallest details, taking my time with it, and savoring the moment instead of rushing through it, and for once I let myself enjoy the excitement without downplaying it or telling myself it was silly.

This is what Miss and Mess has always been about for me, not perfection and not perfect timing, but the life that continues beneath the mess after so many misses.

Buying an iPhone 17 Pro did not erase my past or suddenly make me more successful or more healed, but it marked a moment of arrival, not to a destination, but to myself.

Now, I no longer have to look at other people’s phones and wonder where I stand. - MESSY E.

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