I don’t know if you can tell, but I’ve been having fun with all the features I can use in this new email format. There are buttons and dropdowns and pie charts and all that wonderfulness. I can highlight and quote and column and divide and checklist and calendar…It’s a lot of fun for me.
Admitting that making columns makes me happy is really making me feel like I’ve reached adulthood.
But it reminds me of how I used to think about being an adult. I assumed I would no longer find things funny, or I would be “boring”, or I wouldn’t enjoy the things 12-year-old me loved. Some of these have truth to them. I find different things funny now. I don’t play with the toys I used to love, though I do still read voraciously.
And as the cousin inside joke goes, I am quite boring – because I love to talk with people to connect. (One time when a bunch of the cousins around my age were starting to outgrow playing “Orphans” [because no, we never played House. None of us wanted to be the responsible parents] we were sitting and talking for maybe half an hour and one cousin came in, listened for like 5 minutes, then informed us that we were doing “teenager things”…this has been quoted since.) I valued quality time in a different way than I did when I was little.
“That’s the worst of growing up, and I’m beginning to realize it. The things you wanted so much when you were a child don’t seem half so wonderful to you when you get them.”
— Anne Shirley, Anne of Green Gables
There are definitely things I miss about young me, but there is also excitement there, because that means growth. I’m growing up.
Thus, the things that give me joy have changed. So I get excited about spreadsheets and pie chart features.
I’ve also noticed more and more of my character coming out as I get older. This has been a frequent topic of Secretary’s Corner over the months. I love being able to look back and see where I was a year ago compared to this year. I thought once I stopped growing taller, my personality would stop changing too – not quite!
I think there’s always a lot more growing to do than I can see in the moment.
