Learning Out Loud

(photo credit: "Learning to Walk" by Tela Chhe)

Friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers have been discussing generation gaps for as far back as I can remember. I always dismissed these discussions as silly. After all, people are just people. We can relate to each other if we try, right?

Then the internet was born.

I'm 30. According to various sources, I'm of the X generation. This means little to me other than that I have learned through numerous trials and errors that when someone more than twenty years older than I am says "That's very X-gen of you," the best response is to politely smile and nod. Never ask whether it's a compliment or an insult. That will only bring on the dreaded discussion of the gap.

Here's the thing I've only recently realized: if there's a gap here, my generation is currently bridging it. That's very "uncool" for a gephyrophobic like me. (I'd have never made it as Simon or Garfunkel.) But it's the best analogy I can come up with.

If we're not the bridge, we're simply torn. Raised by a grandmother whose motto was "What goes on in this house stays in this house" and raising a girl whose history teacher's mantra is "Get your assignment into the cloud by Friday," we are somewhere in the middle. We want to know our privacy is there when we want it, but we also tend to learn out loud.

I remember very clearly the embarrassment of learning to ride a bike. I was ten and uncoordinated. All my friends could speed around corners and ride with no hands, while I toppled toward the earth with training wheels. My friends' moms, who were also my mom's friends, sat around in lounge chairs trying -- although not very well -- to stifle their laughter. At one point, I was distracted by my mother's cackling and looked back only to crash head-on into a stop sign and land in a bush. Today, my mother has no memory of this. No one was there with a digital camera. No one captured the moment to YouTube. My mother was not a mommyblogger. For this much, I am grateful.

Fast-forward two decades, and I'm still making a lot of mistakes. Difference is, most of you have seen them. They have been captured in comments sections, twitted, or flickred. Sometimes by me, other times without my consent. But they're out there, to haunt me forever, as the most colorful memories do. And chances are, Google won't forget.

Certain events which have transpired online this week have had me reflecting and ruminating. Lately, the gap is seeming wider and less bridgeable. My life is becoming more complicated and busier. I frequently consider giving up the social aspect of the internet, because it can be draining. I sometimes forget the good parts.

I chatted with a friend this evening. I've known her for going on twelve years, but I've never met her face-to-face. We first came across each other on a message board, one of those places people talked online before "social media" were invented. She has followed me through multiple websites, countless blogs, a few jobs and many life choices. We rarely write on each other's walls, but we email quite a bit. As much time as I spend online, and as much of myself as I've put out there, I think it's safe to say she knows me better than many of the people in my "real life" -- as they say.

Tonight, after we swapped stories about our weeks, she said, "I've enjoyed watching you grow up."

It was out of the blue, and a bit motherly. I was taken aback for a moment before I remembered that she's nearly my mother's age. Instinctively, I smiled and nodded.

It's easy to forget the gap if you're not looking for it.

And sometimes, even when you're staring it right in the face, it doesn't matter at all.