HOPE E. TREMBLAY
What a time we are living in. And I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way.
Yes, this is challenging and scary and uncertain and weird. Mostly, it’s just plain weird.
I still find myself having to go out daily for something news-related, mainly for a photo because most interviews are being done by phone, text, email, messenger or video chat. And when I am out and about, I keep it to once a day and I cram anything I have to do in the outside world in that one trip. I am lucky enough to have hand sanitizer (thanks, in part, to my children who have multiple hand sanitizers on adorable key rings that they put on their backpacks), so I sanitize every time I go in and out of my car.
What is especially weird to me is social media right now. I am seeing fewer rude comments on posts, less people spreading rumors or starting online arguments with strangers and more people sharing something that’s actually informative or funny or that just makes someone smile.
Now that is weird.
Technology is what’s getting people through this. Teachers are connecting with their students by email, Facebook Live, zoom, skype and more. I’ve read a few Facebook posts from people who are actually speaking to friends on the phone (gasp!). I admit I am one of those people who does not love talking on the phone. Growing up, that is not something I could have imagined – I loved talking on the phone. I would get home from school where I spent most of my day with my friends in the same classroom, and call them. We could talk for hours. I was a good kid who rarely got in trouble for, well, anything. Except talking on the phone.
Any time I was grounded as a teenager, it was because I was on the phone way longer than I should have been. At 16, I got my own phone line in my bedroom. What were my grandparents thinking? My boyfriend also had a phone in his room and we would talk for hours at night, often falling asleep while still on the phone.
In college, the phone was my lifeline to my friends from home. We didn’t have cell phones and email was used exclusively for schoolwork. So, we talked on the phone.
Over the years, the art of a phone conversation was lost. Especially once my friends and I had children because as any parent will tell you, there is nothing more of an emergency for a kid as when their mom is trying to talk on the phone. The conversations go something like this:
Me on the phone: “So maybe we could try to get together this weekend with the kids”
Other Mom friend on phone: “That would be great …. Hang on… Davey, I am on the phone. What’s wrong?”
Me: “Just let me kn….What’s up Ry? No, you cannot have a snack…ow what works for you an…. What is so important? Are you bleeding? No? OK then…d we can figure it out.”
This goes on until we finally give up and hang up.
Now, my children are older and my daughter can spend hours on the phone with her friends, usually on Facetime.
Most of my calls these days are work-related. And still, my kids can sense from three rooms away that I am on the phone and NEED something at that very moment!
But, I digress.
My point is that people are connecting in new ways, old ways, unique ways (kids leaving chalk messages on sidewalks, for instance) and more. People are connecting like never before in a time when we cannot connect in person. And I think it’s amazing and I am clinging to those positive moments in this weird world.
How are you connecting right now? Let us know – email me at [email protected], or if you have my number, give me a call.
