I can always recognize when someone is a Babyboomer, my generation, by the ringtone on their phone. We are attached to that ring because it reminds us of when we were kids. You know the ring! Back in those days the telephone was not mobile, remember? It was attached either by cord or by actually being fixed to the wall where it would not move. It was the “phone area”. When the phone would ring it would set off an alarm throughout the whole house and we would all run like crazy to be the first to answer it.
I really don’t know why we did that as kids. Since we were kids, no one was really going to call us! Still we would fight tooth and nail to be the one who got to answer the phone! Losing a tooth or getting your hair pulled was worth it apparently. Even if it was the wrong number! Those memories are ingrained in our mind (and body), so we choose that ring. It brings back memories.
People my age and of my generation have had to do a lot of adapting to technology. Not sure the people who are 25 and under will ever understand what life was like before the smartphone. We would get lost on the road and we would either pull out the almanac (remember?!) or simply stop at a gas station and ask for directions. I guess the other option was that we would simply go back home if we didn’t find the place. And we survived! If we needed a business number we would pull out the big fat yellow pages to do our search, sometimes randomly calling a number because there would be twenty people with the same name. And then, if no one called you or texted you, it didn’t mean they weren’t thinking about you. Now marriages end because someone didn’t text enough or send the right emojis! Ha!
But yes, we need to adapt, and we do! Slowly, but surely! We make the font on our cell phones 8 times larger so we can read them. I sometimes see younger eyes get a glimpse of my phone and I see the smirk on their face. What is funny is that I don’t give a shit. Like literally. I don’t care! And THAT, my friends, is SO liberating! I don’t care that I have to make my words and numbers on my phone monster size! It IS funny! It’s okay if they laugh. At least I can SEE! When you get to be my age, you also stop caring so much about how you look when you go out in public. Sure, I still put myself together (quite well if I may say so myself), but I am aware that I can’t quite see as well, or… I just don’t care. Sometimes I feel like we resemble movie sets.
We look great from the front, the facade, but when you look in the back we are less great looking. We have great hairdos in the front, but the back of our head shows the bobby pins and the grays coming through, and even little bald spots get exposed. And we don’t care! And the same goes for men! Men are great at hiding some spots and accidentally exposing others. You can understand that at a deeper level, too! haha!
While we don’t care, we do become “all-seeing” and our wisdom is finally settled in our systems and we are less scared to give our opinion, speak our mind, or be forthright. Sometimes to our detriment. But it feels so good to be honest! Maybe that’s what it is. We become more frank, more clear, less tolerant of pleasing people when we really don’t want to. I think this is great. If we get invited to something and we don’t want to go… we’ll just say, “No thank you. I don’t feel like it.” When you’re younger, you feel like you need to have an excuse to bow out of something. That feeing. Relief! We also become very good at reading people. Ohhhhh yes. That person is a sociopath. She is a narcisist. He is very kind but doesn’t put his foot down. We also think we know everything. But it’s different than being an adolescent that thinks they know everything. We actually DO know! Haha!
But it’s the other mannerisms that shift as you get older. If I’m going on a trip, I like to have my flight information and my hotel reservation PRINTED on paper. Yes, yes, I understand I can just have it on my phone. Again, we are wise at this age. We KNOW things can happen: a lost cell phone, a dead battery, trouble getting wifi, no readers at the ready! So many things can go wrong. Panic can set in… but having your info on paper makes everything just fine!
Can I tell you how much grief I get for wanting to go to the airport early? But I don’t care. I like avoiding any potential issues. What is wrong with that?
Something else that happens as we get older is we become certified doctors. We diagnose one another and also ask for medical advice from one another! I think by now instead of asking someone “how are you,” we need to be more specific, “how’s your liver today?” “Have you been urinating normally?”
It’s not so bad really. Losing the weight of all the “things” that we’d worry about: how we look, what we say, what our mannerisms are, and whether we come off as “old.” It’s liberating actually. What do you think? Does this resonate? And if it doesn’t, I don’t actually care…. Just kidding!
Love, love GG