Nine
people sat around the table before the meeting started, chatting
comfortably. Several conversations were happening,
and I was content to sit and sort of space out. Something I really enjoy about getting older
is that opportunities for spacing out are still everywhere, but I no longer
care about missing anything.
I’ve
missed out on plenty and been a part of just as much, and it is my experience
that what I missed eventually becomes meaningless. I’ve learned that of all the daily information we
consume and process, very little of it rises to the top of the
import list.
One
of the conversations around the table was about email; a few people were
commenting on the length of one of their addresses. It was a college-affiliated email, rarely
used. The owner had to look it up on her
phone to share it. A
conversation started about the length of school emails and how people hang onto them
long after they’ve finished school. This was a life experience I never had.
I
mused that I went to college so long ago that it wasn’t until graduate school that
I was introduced to email, about a year and a half after email became a normal
part of life for most.
Back
then I sat in a computer lab on campus the first week of the new semester with
a slip of paper in my hand, typed with my own address. Staring at the letters and numbers, the @ seemed
meaningless.
Haltingly,
I asked the young woman next to me: You mean… I type this in… and type someone
else’s email address in… type something… and the other person reads it? I couldn’t visualize it.
Yes,
said the shiny new grad student, my colleague, two full years younger than
me. She was already loads smarter, her
education fresher than mine. She graduated
from a better school than I did, too. I had
spent the last two years doing three things: applying to graduate schools,
dating heedlessly, and hanging out in bars.
Only twenty-four, I felt obsolete, behind the times, practically elderly.
The
need to learn this new skill was urgent.
My learning curve was steep. I
thought I’d never catch up.
Within
a week I was caught up with email and the world wide web.
Years
later, I started a blog because I wanted to write something that others could
read. No matter that I didn’t know who
or really how many were reading; my need coincided with having hours to myself
a day, the advent of social media, and the thought that I had
something to say.
I
learned enough to design a little website, plunked ten dollars down to secure a
domain, and wrote.
In
the five years since, the world of blogging has grown into a universe, dotted
with important words like branding and content and plugin and reach and acronyms
like SEO and PV and POV and others that I can’t remember and that are just as
meaningless as that @.
I
am on the fringe of this universe, my little blog sort of lagging
behind at a pace much slower than others, having never really understood or
educated myself on the proper words to insert into my posts so that they can be
more easily found on Google, tailoring content to reach as many people as
possible. Five years of blogging and
what I’ve gleaned from how to build a successful blog boils down to one thing –
having clickable posts. There’s more to
it, I’m sure.
But
no matter. I’m old enough to know that I
don’t have to keep up with the crowd.
There will always be someone more successful, more astute, more
interested in playing the game and therefore better at it than me. My learning curve has flattened out a bit, yet I continue on, practicing my writing and hopefully getting better. While other more successful bloggers are busy
learning about networking and viral posts and building a social media empire, I
continue to plug away, no matter how insignificantly.
My learning curve was a steep one, but from the top
of the hill I saw another, steeper one, and another, and another. At some point I jumped off. Sometimes I think I should climb the hill
again, reach the top, and keep on going.
The
information will never end. Do I want to
spend my life chasing it? I consider a
life trying to stay on top of the learning curve.
Today
is not the day to begin that life. Today I'll choose some of it and let the rest fall
away.
Today, I've caught up enough. I’m okay with what I’m missing.
*******
So true that there is always another hill. I like hills, but I get tired and tend to take breaks, and then I notice it was a mountain in the first place. I don't know. I lost my metaphor at the bottom of the hill. Or mountain. Or something.
ReplyDeleteI got you. Thing is, with me, I never really liked hiking in the first place. ;)
DeleteI get it. We just want to write. I'm glad you do that. xo
ReplyDeleteThank you, Alison. I'm glad you get it. It is hard to feel on the outside looking in, sometimes. Not hard enough for me to do anything about it, though. ;)
DeleteAndrea, you've just said everything I've been feeling. That the things I'm missing, the things I don't know how to do or don't have the motivation to learn just aren't for me.
ReplyDeleteI want to write. I want to be read by people that I love, know and that matter to me.
The "keeping up" is just exhausting.
You are not on the fringe of anything at least not in my mind.
Hiking is pretty stupid. I think that's what I'm trying to say. ;)
Thank you for your sweet words. Let's not hike together. :)
DeleteI think maturity helps us to separate necessity from extraneous. Some might just call it age.
I could have written every word of this. Someone recently asked me how I make my blog stand out and my response was a long, awkward blank stare. Maybe standing out isn't the prize any more (at least for me). Maybe I want somebody to happen upon me like an unexpected creek with the clearest water and decide to sit a spell. Maybe it's okay for that to be enough.
ReplyDeleteThat long, awkward blank stare: I know it well. It's hard to explain to people that I spend so much time doing this simply because I love it. It's hard to leave that there.
DeleteYour creek analogy - yes. That's what I want, too. Would it be nice for that person to offer me something wonderful in exchange? Yes. But for me, that they are reading is enough.
You are a wise woman! This resonated with me (and due to my current exhausted state, I choked up a bit - keeping up is exhausting and I cannot do it). I'm a cruddy comment-er, but I always love reading your posts. I think you're in the perfect spot, whether you're with the learning curve, ahead of it, or wherever!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Missy. I appreciate your words, and that you take the time to read. Keeping up with the newest thing has always been hard for me, and although I can do it, most of the time something holds me back from running the race. I have to think that that Something is meant to be. Maybe it's the same for all of us who feel similarly. xoxo
Delete