I'm So Cool!!!

I am actually thinking of doing a series on the reasons I'm so cool.  Seriously!  What in the world could actually make me think this and why in the world would I be so egotistical to think of scrapbooking about it?!!  Well, quite frankly, you're probably pretty damn cool too - especially if you're over 45!!! Let me tell you a wee tale...

A few weeks ago I was sitting on a mattress on the floor of a tiny room with no door.  On my 39" flat-screen TV was a movie that I love to watch about once a year (remember, my memory goes fast so I can actually watch it every week and forget parts of it!).  While sitting there that evening, a boy of 18 walked through our front door and glanced in to say 'hey' on his way back to GiGi's room. He stopped and exclaimed, "NONNA, What are you watching?!!"  "Alien." was the reply from the mattress.  "Oh my God, that's a classic!" the boy said, never taking eyes from the screen.  "Really. I've loved this movie ever since the first time I saw it in the theater with my brother and my boyfriend." I commented nonchalantly.  "Oh my God Nonna, you are so cool!" and the boy walked away.

I've thought about this exchange several times since it first occurred, and have actually started counting the ways in which I am 'So Cool'.  For instance: seeing Jaws, Alien, Star Wars, etc. in the theater when they came out; seeing The Who with Keith Moon at the first concert ever played at the Pontiac Silverdome; having one of my best friends become NFL Rookie of the Year in 1979; watching the first moon walk on television; owning all the greats - The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Stones, Hendrix, The Doors, Aerosmith, etc. - on vinyl LPs as well as owning 45 records.  The list goes on and on... and little did I know that however cool I knew I was at the time, these same things would make me 'So Cool' at the age of 53.

Then the list transforms; it becomes the list of things I have lived through - the things I have seen and done.  There are the movies, the LPs, etc. but there are also small things.  Remembering our first dishwasher; first microwave; TV with no cable; going from rotary-dial to push-button to portable telephones; working in a room set at about 45 degrees with a room-size computer and now sitting on a mattress typing into a little thing.  I remember leaded-gas.  I remember 10-cent Cokes in a glass bottles from a machine.  I remember thinking that Get Smart shoe-phone was ludicrous (well, okay, it really was) but now I'm looking at watch-phones for Christmas.  And I remember cutting out stories regarding the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and pasting them onto construction paper in a notebook.
How blessed I am to have lived through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and into the new millennium! What glorious decades I've experienced!  Having lived through so many little and huge experiences in these 50 years - that does make me So Cool.  Wow! Bob Dylan was right when he said in the 60s 'times they are achangin'!  I grew up part-time in my grandparents house, so things hadn't changed so much between my moms time and mine - with the exception of indoor plumbing.  But my grandchildren, who've had cellphones most of their young lives and can't imagine growing up without the Disney channel or DVD players, have no idea (except that I did force them to watch Apollo 13 and pay special attention to the knobs and buttons in the space capsule and explain how we went to the moon before the microwave oven or MTV was invented).

So that's all this little post is about...a great big WOOHOO for all of you who are SO COOL!!! And it's not about living so long (lol!) - but a reminder of what a wondrous life we have led so far.  Each of the past five decades have brought such wondrous changes to the average way of life.  Even if we had never left the house, our lives would still be incredible.  Remember that everyday! Make a list, share it with someone - whether it's "Remember when..." or "Did you know that...".  And walk around from here on out with that attitude "I'm Sooo Cool" because, whether or not anyone else really knows how very much or what makes you that way, you truly are!

Stay Safe and Scrap On!

P.S.  This might make a great Christmas gift... maybe a mini-book for yourself or someone else.  I always think that scrapbooking is a gift: not only when it pays tribute to the recipient, but also when it gives those close to you information about yourself that may help them to know you better.

"What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pale in comparison to what lies within you." - Ralph Waldo Emerson