This isn’t where I thought I’d be.

Everything is increasingly complex. My husband wanted to buy a copy of a Moody Blues CD that he already owned. Except he wanted the one with the half dozen bonus tracks. He’s looked for it in stores. He looked on Amazon and Amazon Marketplace. He found a new copy of exactly what he was looking for on eBay. There was a time when I did a lot of shopping on eBay—right after my mother died and I was trying to shop my way to happiness. (Big hint: That doesn’t work.)

So there is the CD he wants, but he doesn’t remember his passwords. Neither do I.

First I had to reset my eBay password, once I figured out what my account name was.

Then I had to reset my PayPal password, and I’m still not sure what my account name is under for PayPal.

I had a password to log on when I needed to report an absence at school. I got to choose that one, but it had to be all numbers and I didn’t have an all-number password that I’d used online before. I used the same password I have on my garage door opener. The real struggle with calling in for a sub when I had the flu or appendicitis wasn’t the password, however, it was my username. My “username” for calling in a sub when I was too sick to work was also a number assigned to me, one I never would have chosen, and which relates in no way whatsoever to the rest of my life. Fortunately, I remembered this one because it has also become the number I must use to make photocopies for my students. Even better? I never have to call in a sub ever again.

Usually I use the same password and username for everything I must log in to use online. It’s a great strategy in theory. These coded accounts include my Poets & Writers page; my blogs; accounts with places I buy from including Etsy and yarn stores across the country; the online education journals I comment on; the literary journals I submit to online; Duotrope where I keep my submission records; my original retirement account with the State of Oregon PERS and my other Oregon retirement account that will send me almost three hundred dollars a month for about twenty years since I failed to wait to retire until I was 65; my health insurance account; my email account; Gale; my computer at school; the program I am required to use to take attendance at school; my Clatsop Community College account I use to submit grades; and the Oaks testing website that I never have to use again. My health records seem to be locked and the only way I can get into my internet system at home is to hunt up the  place where Ian wrote it down. I have codes for my internet provider too. Most usernames are made up from my name, but the passwords are messier.

Some accounts I use daily. A few I must use two or three times a year.

All of this wouldn’t be so bad except that each of these accounts, like my school absence account, require special details—All letters with no caps, a combination of numbers and letters or no letters at all, symbols or no symbols, case-sensitive or not, at least eight digits or less than seven. Even if I wanted to (which I do), I couldn’t use the same username and password for every account.

And then, because I am not as efficient as I might be, I occasionally forget a password. And then, like the day ordering Moody Blues, the instant purchase becomes a freakishly lengthy and irritating process as I answer security questions on my laptop in order that Gary can order a $9 + shipping CD on his computer downstairs.

Sometimes I can’t even figure out how to find or change a password. For a while, every time I tried to do a software update on my computer, Apple made me change my password, which must not be like any password I have used with them before, and then informs me that as a matter of security, my account has been locked. When I go looking for a way to unlock my account I find myself wandering about and after about a half hour, I become hysterical and have to leave the room and look at colors for the rest of the evening to calm myself. This has been going on for years.

Yeah, it’s true, I’m an idiot. My memory is going. Ordering that CD from Amazon instead of eBay would have been so easy. I actually remembered my Amazon password even though it’s nothing like any of the others. Except now I do not recall that number. My computer remembers everything, thankfully.

This isn’t how, as a twelve year old, I imagined I would spend my grown-up time.

 

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I need to go lie down and look at pretty colors. A reminder

Before I go lie down and look at pretty colors, maybe a review. I never thought I would clutter up my mind with fabricated names and passwords, that I would spend my time staring at screens

I thought I would visit Arabia and ride their horses across sand. I would wear filmy pants that fell in translucent folds to my ankles. My hair would be black and my eyes dark and my skin would tint toward golden brown.

I thought I would live on acreage and the box stalls would be extra large. The horses all had names. When I was twelve the house had creamy wool carpets and the colors were a split triad of gold, yellow-orange, and navy. Wicker furniture. Teak.

I thought I might marry, but probably not.

The life I’ve had since I was twelve was better than I could imagine. There is a tiny fear in the back of my mind sometimes, that someone might notice and come take it away.