Secret passwords

Tuesday and the teenage kid and I are home alone for the week; K is in Texas for business training. For the first time in our 21 years as parents, we'll have an overlapping of obligations that take us both out of town at the same time. The kid cried out, "Don't worry. I can stay home alone!" I say quickly, "It's against the law to leave a kid under 16 home alone." I have no idea if this is true but it settled him down some. "Besides," I say, "you can't cook all your own meals for a week."

"Who says I would cook? 651-488-8888. Pizza Hut is really great."

Isn't it mind-boggling how many numbers we have to remember in our lives? Used to be that our parents made us remember our phone numbers once we reached a certain age. It helped to remember the sequence of three digits, imagine the dash, followed by four digits. Drove me nuts when some smart aleck grown-up changed the rhythm of that sequence to this: XXXXX-XX. C'mon!

It was a big deal to remember my social security card number for use in college. Because by then I had already committed my bike lock combo to memory, too. 36-6-8. There, now you have it. If you ever recognize my old blue bike and have a yearning to steal something, you've got my number.

Now I have a three-page cheat sheet with all my secret passwords. And for security purposes I have to change those passes at the institution's request to prevent identity theft.

For some time I was using self-invented labels for myself as cornerstones for my passwords. When I turned forty I had the partial password 'newgirl' with some combination of symbols and numbers. When I was forty-three I felt the impulse to write stronger than ever before and so I became 'scribeXX!!' And for that year when I felt I was just trying too hard at everything I changed to 'aimlow101.' How hilarious to see my cheatsheet looking like a listing of all those MySpace IDs: dizzyup girl and brobrau and child of the korn. If hackers could detect my secret feelings--and from the look and sound of me over the years this might not be too hard to do--they could raid my bank account, my Netflix subscription, and my blog sign-in.

But now I'm just sticking with the straight stuff, some unrelated combination of letters and symbols and numbers. My feelings about life still change with the seasons but there's no need to track it through secret passwords anymore. There is no reason to be so covert about my general state of mind. I have friends. And family. And co-workers there for me. I am human, hear me roar.

Sincerely yours,

Adrenaldepletiongirl
piningforvacay2221!