Since it’s always great to talk about the body parts that are falling apart in our declining years, I posted a piece last week recounting the gloriousness of all that and suggested gently that we do it with just a smidge of grace and dignity since there are those who are coming up quickly behind us who are watching and waiting to see if we get hissy-fied over the fact that every attachment is proving that gravity really does win in the end, regardless of our efforts to thwart it.
Did anybody else notice that there are ninety words in that sentence? Ninety. I’m a little over half-way there. That’s nuts.
It’s not like I’m old – like I said last week – but I still have moments like these with my 25-year-old:
Geoff on the phone talking me through a huge tech issue from Seattle: “Mom. Listen. Click on start. Start. It’s on the bottom left corner. On your monitor. Start. Click it. Go to Control Panel. Control Panel. It’s in the Start Menu. The Start Menu. It’s what popped up when you hit Start. No. Don’t hit Start again. Okay. Hit Start again. Did the Start Menu pop up? Then click Start. Now go to Control Panel. Control Panel. Click on it. Click on Control Panel. The Start Menu disappeared?”
[Expels long breath.]
“Okay. Click on Start.”
It’s not like I was born with a mouse in my hand like he was. That boy came into the world already prewired for technological aptitude. Was I? No. Wrong generation for all that. The boy – who I potty trained, for what that’s worth – has banned me from ever uploading, updating, downloading, downgrading… whatever… anything by myself. How was I supposed to know that you don’t try to get that Windows Ten thing on your computer in the coffee shop with the sketchy Internet? It’s not like I came into the world with that knowledge.
Additionally, I’m apparently not a very good driver. I’m this lady:
I get lost going around a corner. Downtown Nampa is really like the Bermuda Triangle. You can find your way in, but you can never find your way out. But at least I use my signals so that other drivers know what I’m about to do even when I have no idea where I am or where I’m going or how to get there.
I would submit that that has nothing to do with aging – I’ve always been directionally impaired.
Don’t judge.
We all want to remain relevant in this ever-evolving world of ours that continues to spin in an effort to make us all dizzy. And although gravity takes its toll and we get turned around in a town we’ve lived in for years and our kids become the parents and we become the kids, I want to throw one more challenge out there to anyone who is still listening…
… Rock on. No matter what age you are.
Daisy Rain Martin is an author, speaker, advocate, and educator as well as a founding member of The Flying M-Inklings Writing Group. Her comedic memoir, Juxtaposed: Finding Sanctuary on the Outside, was Christopher Matthew’s #1 top selling book in 2012. She has a free e-book on her website for anyone who has or is currently being sexually abused called, If It’s Happened to You. Her next book, Hope Givers: Hope is Here, will be out later this summer. Daisy is also the Editor in Chief of RAIN Magazine, an online magazine that has been a fundraising effort for her three favorite charities and features new, up-and-coming writers. Please follow her weekly blog, SATURDAISIES, which addresses a plethora of current issues including child advocacy, all things hilarious, and matters of the heart. She would love for you to join the Rainy Dais Community by friending her on Facebook and Twitter.