I’m turning 40 this year. It’s a really weird age. Like, I’m young enough to still throw down and close out a night club but old enough to need about 3 days to get over a hangover. Some of my friends seem to have already embraced senior-citizenship by going to bed at decent hours and getting up early but, like Cyril Neville, I’ll still be shaking my ass past 70 so long as my hips hold out during all my twerking. Yes, my Latina ass has got that move down and if you put on some bounce, I’ll sure as hell show you.
A friend posted something earlier revealing age via technology that existed as we were growing up and I thought I’d reflect on that some.
- We had a rotary phone when I was younger.
- My grandparents had an old console television that could double as a table. It was massive and wood.
- I also grew up handy with rabbit ears and televisions that had dials on them instead of buttons. Remote controls came later.
- My family was one of the first to get a personal computer and it was a Commodore 64.
- I typed a lot of school reports on typewriters, though ours was fancy enough to have the white out tape built in so you could delete.
- The internet? Yeah, we were also among the first amongst our friends to have dial-up (and a limit on how much we were allowed to use it). I’m grateful my parents weren’t luddites.
- Only the coolest kids had separate phone lines in their bedrooms with a corded phone. I was not so lucky.
- I remember the addition of call-waiting to landlines. Call-waiting and 3-way calling were my jam back in the day. There’s a dirty joke in there somewhere.
- Given all that, I was cool enough to have a pager in high school and, of course, I eventually had an indestructible Nokia cellphone when they came out.
- I recall I was resistant to texting when that became a thing when I was in the military. Apparently I got on board. I remember when even… memory is a strange thing.
- Kids today don’t know the struggle of a busy tone or the satisfaction of really hanging up on someone by slamming the phone down hard, leaving them with a dial tone. Also, to ignore a call, you had to leave the phone off the hook (until your parents yelled at you for doing so).
- I was already 10 or so when Nintendos were first released. We got one with the fun running pad for Christmas that year.
- Acceptable snacks (really, required snacks to be considered “cool” and this was extremely important as a youth) were Little Debbie’s and Coke. No one who was anyone was eating healthy snacks in the 80s.
- Equally appalling to today’s parents is that we were allowed to play outside completely unsupervised when we were just 5 or 6. We had strict rules and my little sister got to come along with me more often than I wanted (now I’m grateful for those times), but we got to play outside no matter the weather.
- No one used to make plans and then confirm plans. You could just show up at someone’s house and knock on the door, unless you knew it was their dinner time and that was just considered rude, unless you were right with their parents.
- I was basically born a writer, beginning with poetry almost as soon as I could write my name, so I constantly had to carry notebooks and something to write with (I still do…habit, I guess). Now I’m grateful to have my phone’s notepad 24/7 and never be scrounging for paper.
I’m sure there’s lots I’m missing. I’m totally down with getting older. Age doesn’t dictate much except how much your joints hurt and your life insurance keeps increasing. I’m happy to see things like seaweed snacks, leggings, and flannel shirts back in fashion. I’ve always been one to nap and the older I get, apparently the more socially acceptable it is. You won’t find me “dressing my age,” “acting my age (unless I start talking about real estate or the stock market),” or “dancing my age.” As long as I can move and feel like it, I’m going to just be me, which is highly inappropriate in teeny tiny dresses.
Not doing too bad, I think.