I like walks on the beach and chocolate behind glass counters and used leather diaries with frayed yellow edges. I also like texting words like, "quintessence."
I know, I'm a bit outdated. I like to think of it as classic or "old school," but I think the harsh truth of the matter is that I'm still living like a kid from 1995.
My parents, on the other hand, have unintentionally functioned as the foil to my [lack of] youth and modernity. They have subverted the notion of age, of generational gap, and have created with vigor a new sense of the word, "cool." They're hip.
Most people find it amusing when their parents discover the Google. Sometimes, amusement concedes to frustration when their parents text their children blank messages, with false hope that the apparatus will convey messages in the same capacity as telepathy. Most people, however, do not have parents who can build and program computers, who look thirty years younger than their age, and who use "lol" the way it was intended--not when they're actually laughing, but when they don't have time to humor me.
Last week, I had my usual mid-May, half-birthday break down, and I reached out to my parents for emotional support. Our basement is currently undergoing renovation, so our home phone has been acting a bit shoddy, and my sister's phone got rained on, so I was left with my parents' cell phones. I first texted my mother.
Rucha: Hi. Miss you!
Mother: mu
Rucha: What's mu?
Mother: miss you
I then tried my father.
Rucha: Hi. Love you!
Father: luv u2
Rucha: [insert blank text of exasperation]
Father: u try2 send pic?
I subsequently ate a $15 salad topped with veggie burger strips and watched Parks & Rec on my iPad (extent to my connection with Gen Y). I then got ready for bed. When I'm home, right before I go to bed my mother smiles at me, strokes my hair, and with a sincerity unparalleled, one that can only be produced by my parents (Gen Y's guests of honor), will say, "Jai Sri Krishna." It's a blessing, something that my parents sort of automatically chant without much heed, or at least, one that I usually receive without much heed. It never mattered much to me, but it's the entire practice around it--the smiling, the warmth, the genuineness--that touches me, that subverts the indifference of the world.
After I burped up some veggie burger meat, I texted my mother again.
Rucha: Love you! Good night.
Mother: lu gn beta
Rucha: gn?
Mother: good night
Rucha: how fitting
Mother: lol jsk
It took me about 12 seconds to realized "jsk" refers to the aforementioned blessing. I audibly sighed (to no one in particular.)
Rucha: Quintessence.
[no response]
I know, I'm a bit outdated. I like to think of it as classic or "old school," but I think the harsh truth of the matter is that I'm still living like a kid from 1995.
My parents, on the other hand, have unintentionally functioned as the foil to my [lack of] youth and modernity. They have subverted the notion of age, of generational gap, and have created with vigor a new sense of the word, "cool." They're hip.
Most people find it amusing when their parents discover the Google. Sometimes, amusement concedes to frustration when their parents text their children blank messages, with false hope that the apparatus will convey messages in the same capacity as telepathy. Most people, however, do not have parents who can build and program computers, who look thirty years younger than their age, and who use "lol" the way it was intended--not when they're actually laughing, but when they don't have time to humor me.
 |
| The Young & the Restless (25 years ago, "lol") |
Rucha: Hi. Miss you!
Mother: mu
Rucha: What's mu?
Mother: miss you
I then tried my father.
Rucha: Hi. Love you!
Father: luv u2
Rucha: [insert blank text of exasperation]
Father: u try2 send pic?
I subsequently ate a $15 salad topped with veggie burger strips and watched Parks & Rec on my iPad (extent to my connection with Gen Y). I then got ready for bed. When I'm home, right before I go to bed my mother smiles at me, strokes my hair, and with a sincerity unparalleled, one that can only be produced by my parents (Gen Y's guests of honor), will say, "Jai Sri Krishna." It's a blessing, something that my parents sort of automatically chant without much heed, or at least, one that I usually receive without much heed. It never mattered much to me, but it's the entire practice around it--the smiling, the warmth, the genuineness--that touches me, that subverts the indifference of the world.
After I burped up some veggie burger meat, I texted my mother again.
Rucha: Love you! Good night.
Mother: lu gn beta
Rucha: gn?
Mother: good night
Rucha: how fitting
Mother: lol jsk
It took me about 12 seconds to realized "jsk" refers to the aforementioned blessing. I audibly sighed (to no one in particular.)
Rucha: Quintessence.
[no response]
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