#TaelerArmy — Welcome to my 1st official blog story!
With all the craziness of living in the 21st Century, I really like to take a step back sometimes and think of a time before I had a cell phone or a Myspace. ((Yes dating myself with the whole Myspace thing)). We get so caught up these days in what others are doing. How many likes we get on social media, when the next IPhone comes out, what’s the new fad diet, what’s Miley doing now, the next comic book based box office hit, which celeb is in rehab, half naked IG models claiming equality while pushing products they themselves don’t even use, what WWE will do next & sign next… It’s like “keeping up with the Jones’s” the real-life game! But why? Who cares? How much precious time and money are we wasting on crap that doesn’t really matter? All of this for what? The sake of staying current or relevant to people we don’t even know or like? I’d much rather prefer to play my own game of life and it’s my turn!
I’m so thankful I wasn’t given my first cell phone until I was 13. Relieved that I grew up in a decade where going outside until Mom called our names from the window to come inside for dinner was still a thing. Kinda like the 90s equivalent of “when the street lights come on your butt better be getting home.” I loved the evenings where 7pm-8pm Disney Channel had awesome movies that you’d looked forward to. Board games were still cool then. I still got excited for coloring books and crayons. I didn’t have designer clothes to wear for my parents to post pics of me on IG for who knows to look at and enjoy.
I’m Incredibly grateful that I didn’t have a Myspace until I went to high school and signed up for Facebook in college. I guess that’s the hipster millennial in me that didn’t even know what a millennial was. I had a childhood. A childhood of being resourceful and making my own fun— neighborhood kids getting together to build a tree house, repurposing old VHS tapes into Barbie beds, sleepovers, playing fish out of water or Marco Polo in the pool. Using Grandma’s curtains to dress up as a princess. Dare I even say our parents taught us how to play four-square and kick-the-can? Point is, I may have watched T.V, but an IPad, Tablets, T.Vs and equal parts the internet weren’t my parents. I didn’t have everything but I wanted for nothing. My computer time was monitored in the kitchen as I sucked at Minesweeper on a 1995 computer in the year 2001. Going to Blockbuster was a treat! Going to stores and walking down aisle upon aisle of barbie’s was EPIC and torture! We didn’t have a gaming system until after the PS1 came out but we were still happy. Going to the movies with your bff cost a total of $10 of allowance money. Those days were the days!
Taking a step back and a few minutes break from keeping up with the Jones’s is in my eyes one of the best ways to stay true to who you are in a society that’s built on the philosophy of you ain’t sh** unless you drive this car, wear that label, have a certain skin color, breasts this size, this many followers, that many likes, x amount of comments, washboard abs, botox, steroids, 6 vacations a year which you need to post about or it didn’t happen, and ofcourse how many swipe rights you nailed. A society that for decades has been preying on insecurities that they’ve been subliminally instilling in your mind since you were old enough to watch T.V and type “asdf space space jkl;” in computer typing class.