After 10:00 Mass, our church has coffee and doughnuts downstairs in the Church Hall. Last Sunday, the volunteers who ran the coffee and doughnuts had cleaned up and said, we are leaving, please shut off the lights when you leave. We all chuckled, picked up our trash, put on our coats, rounded up the kids and went home.
I got to thinking about it. Am I old and boring? I mean, 15 years ago, we were closing the bars. Instead of shutting the lights off, the lights were turned on and we had to leave. Now I'm hanging out in a church and being asked to turn out the lights when I leave. So I don't play any fast paced video games and I don't text with the hip and cool abbreviations (and I just used the words hip and cool and I'm not talking about anatomy or temperature). I prefer to handwrite lists and I still use an address book...not the one on my phone, but the one with pages and the lettered tabs. My Christmas Card list is a box with lettered dividers and I use an index card for each person. I handwrite the year I send the card and check it off when I get one in return. I save the envelopes and update any address changes. To some, archaic and just beyond comprehension. It works for me and I enjoy it.
So, am I an old dinosaur? Perhaps, but I had my own fun back in the day and I don't just mean having to get up off of the couch, walk ALL the way across the living room and slowly turn the knob on the TV to see what was on the other 3 channels we had. I remember having to dial a phone (it took forever, almost a full 30 seconds) and stretching the phone cord to it's limit...I even remember friends having party lines at their summer houses and listening to the ring pattern to see if it was a call for them or not.
I also saw some really cool bands...you know, back when they actually had instruments on stage and played them. I wouldn't trade that for anything. K.K. Downing from Judas Priest grabbed my hand and pulled off one of my black leather and lace glove. That was totally cool. I remember when you could drive down the road, cranking the your favorite song on your 8 track (and pr cassette player depending on the year) with no seatbelt on, rolling the window down by actually turning a handle and rolling the window down...and having an open beer in between your legs (no cup holders back then) and being perfectly legal, as long as you were 18 or 20 or 19 or 20 or 21, again, depending on the year. You just slowed down over the bumps so you didn't spill.
I will admit to having a lot of fun in my twenties. Some of the details are a little blurry and I made a TON of mistakes. Some funny, some embarassing and some downright scary in retrospect....what the HELL was I thinking (or not thinking, as the case may be). I wouldn't change a thing, it is all part of who I am now, but I'm sure glad I did it then and not now. I'm perfectly content to have spent New Year's Eve in my jammies with the kids, watching movies. I honestly have no desire to be hanging out in a bar past 9:30 at night, let alone close the joint down. I'm content where I am in life. Being settled is wonderful.
Maybe I do seem old and boring to you. That is fine. Your perception of me is just that...your perception. I am perfectly content to have silent, boring, thinking games on my Kindle. I'm thrilled that I got 3 books for Christmas..one is about World War I, another is about spies during the Revolutionary War (stay awake here, please) and the third is about Derek Sanderson...one of the Big Bad Bruins. Oh, and I also got an ax. I drive a 4 door sedan....but my license plate holders are barbed wire. So, take a minute before you decide. Nothing is truly what it seems....always take that extra second and look again. You might be surprised.
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