Can You Teach An Old Dog New Tricks???

I sure hope so! Today I was informed by my 19 year old daughter that I was "too old to learn new things". That I have "gone past my learning curve". Imagine my surprise! I was taught by my father that if you didn't learn something NEW everyday that it was a waste of a day, and that your life was over. So, finding out that a few months shy of being 45 years old my life is over, was quite the shock to me!

Here is what happened that prompted this declaration from my oh-so-wise 19 year old daughter. . .

I am a die-hard AOL user - yes that is right - I know I am one of the few left out there in the world. And until today I was just fine with that! When I first started using the computer and the internet, I was an AOL subscriber. In fact until just 2 years ago, I was still on dial-up by choice(insert gasp here!). AOL is the only internet I have ever used. I love how "friendly" it is. I love how it welcomes me every time I sign on, how it lets me know I have mail. I love my M&M candies wallpaper and all of my cute little picture icons I can attach to my favorite places and my favorite IM buddies.

It does not bother me at all that I have to sign on and wait for all of my welcome screen stuff to load up. It does not bother me that everything is on my screen as I surf the web, read my mail, and visit different web sites. Just the contrary - I rather like all of the colorful stuff, and find comfort in the fact that the things I do the most online are all right there handy for me. But apparently, this is all "old-school" and lame. It has apparently become the topic of discussion more than once for my daughter, her and her "geek" boyfriend, and is the unspoken opinion of my son-in-law.

My daughter informed me today that she wanted to delete my AOL software from my computer and break my AOL CD so that I could not load it back on my computer. She figured if she did this that I would be forced to join the rest of the world in using the "real internet". This is where she informed me that I was past my time to be able to learn anything new and that is why she took pity on me and did not delete my beloved AOL. She figures I can no longer learn the tough stuff like Internet Explorer.

Well, tonight I am posting to my blog via the "real internet"! I have vowed that I will give this a try for a whole week and see if I can enjoy my internet experience as much without all of my M&M's and other fun icons that I have grown to love and depend on so much. So far it is okay. I can still get done what I need to, there is just a level of fun that is missing from it.

What my darling daughter does not understand is that at this point in my life, it is not that I cannot learn new things, it's just that I want to enjoy my life. I am not using the internet for school or for work. I am using it for my own personal enjoyment. I use it to reseach things I am interested in learning. I use it to keep in touch with friends and family. I use it to explore new avenues of creativity for myself. I am past the point in my life where I care what others think of me, and I don't have to "keep up" to feel important. I love this age - feeling comfortable in my own skin and not really caring what others think about me. But I do love a good challenge! I still have a little bit of a competative spirit in me. So if giving up my AOL for a week. . .or longer is the challenge I have in front of me now - so be it!