My Mid-Life Brain on Twitter

A hat tip to my friend Shelly this morning for alerting me to Tara Parker-Pope’s interview with Barbara Strauch, author of The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind. I immediately logged on to our library catalog to put a hold on the book (only 22 people ahead of me!)… before I forgot.

I need this book. This past weekend, I joined Twitter, something I was sure I’d never do. While I thoroughly enjoy some aspects of modern technology and communication and pursue them with as much intensity as I can muster, in other areas I am still very much stuck firmly in the 20th century. I’ve never owned a microwave oven, nor a dishwasher. We drive a car for which the odometer, in about 800 miles, will turn over to 200,000. I don’t have a texting plan on my phone.

So what made me change my mind on Twitter? I had a couple of reasons: 1) After seeing that a few of my posts here had been tweeted by other blogger friends, I wanted to return the favor, and 2) My son, who is my unofficial consultant in all things to do with 21st century virtual life, told me over slices of Rocky Rococo pizza recently that bloggers are wise to be on Twitter. “It would be a good idea, Mom,” he said assuredly, when I expressed doubts.

So, I set up a Twitter account @lisa_rivero, tapped into the wonderful resources and friends at SheWrites so that I would have some people to follow and not look too pathetic twiddling my Twitter thumbs all by myself, and started reading and tweeting.

Can you say learning curve? I knew you could.

Wow. After a couple of days, I can say that I really do understand why people who tweet love it so much. The updates and conversations have a real life quality that I wasn’t expecting. The resources—especially on writing—are amazing… and quickly amassing. How do I keep up with it all? How do I categorize people I follow so that I don’t miss anyone? What are all those hash marks? My midwestern girl roots occasionally whisper in my ear, “Who wants to listen to you, anyway?”

Strauch says, “What we have by middle age is all sorts of connections and pathways that have been built up in our brain that help us.”

Okay. I’m waiting.

On the other hand, something else from the interview with Strauch gives me hope, because I have already known it to be true. She says:

“We’re brought up to think we’ll enter middle age and it will be kind of gloomy. But as scientists look at real people, they find out the contrary. One study of men found that well-being peaked at age 65. Over and over they find that middle age, instead of being a time of depression and decline, is actually a time of being more optimistic overall.”

I saw this surge of well-being happen with my mother in her forties. I feel it happening in me. I can look back on all the new things I have learned and mastered in my life. Our generation, as adults, has navigated a continual influx of daily progress in ways our children can’t understand. They watch re-runs of Star Trek and assume the automatic sliding door or portable computers are reflections of the present, nothing remarkable at all. I remember thinking they were as futuristic as flying cars.

Oh, I almost forgot the coolest part: As I was writing this post, I wondered if Barbara Strauch is on Twitter. She is. I’m now a follower.

Who knows? Maybe next year I’ll start zapping my food.