After a long waiting period for a background check to be completed, I began the training for my new part time job, right before the holidays. Learning the required duties that it entails has proven to be quite challenging. During the 1990s I swore that I would never have a computer. Being a country girl at heart, I wanted no part of technology; however, as a writer I eventually learned the advantages of having one. My new job requires me to have “computer skills” and I struggle with what comes so easily to younger generations.
I often reflect about the many changes that have occurred in my lifetime of nearly a quarter century. Centurions, such as the recently deceased former President Jimmy Carter, surely saw the world change before their very eyes. My grandchildren cannot fathom those things that were “normal” when I was their age. Black and white television, dial telephones with long cords, Dolly Madison creameries, or drive-in movie theaters are incomprehensible to them.
Society’s moral compass has perhaps seen the greatest expansion. Women known as flappers, during the Roaring 20s, dared to raise their skirts above their knees – a mere 100 years ago. While I was in high school, I fought along with my classmates to abolish the dress code, having had to walk to school in a skirt too many times on cold winter mornings. The sexual revolution was launched around that time and today it appears that nothing is too risqué for hollywood movies.
I have watched a couple of films on the Gaia channel where I have learned that scientists are uncovering numerous ancient civilizations. Some of them occurred thousands of years before recorded history. They have even found evidence of where Atlantis probably existed. As I contemplate life as we currently know it and I wonder at the civilizations that have gone before us, I remind myself to stay rooted in the present moment. I remember that Life moves in only one direction – forward. I do not take anything too seriously – not even a learning curve. In another thousand years it will have been forgotten, along with life as we know it.
