Never Too Old to Learn

Yesterday’s post, the one for which I look backed at my senior year in high school, caused a disturbance in the force which left me unable to fall asleep that night. My mind was racing racing racing thinking about the past to where I couldn’t slow it down, shut it down and get sleepy.

Not that the past was some terrible trauma, which it wasn’t. I just couldn’t stop thinking – mostly about what I know to have happened to this person, that person, about how I so easily grew away from and discarded people I now wish I’d maintained contact with, yada yada yada.

Unable to get back on center, to my usual calm, quiet, meditative state of being, and unable to turn on the television for fear of disturbing the neighbors, it was several games of Candy Crush, needlepointing in insufficient light until my eyes could barely see and, still wide awake at 3:00 a.m., I downloaded the Pokemon Go app.

Not knowing the first thing about how to work it, I did manage to tweak the avatar to try to make it look like me.

It doesn't look at all like me, because there was no option for braids and a much heavier body, but it's pretty cool.

After that, I logged onto the computer, read an online tutorial, turned the app on and, around 3:45, quickly found a CP14 Bulbasaur hovering over the couch.

I’ve been seeing a lot in the news about the app not being safe but, using common sense caution, being aware of one's surroundings, where one goes to hunt, it’s fun and promotes exercise -- a lot of walking.

I didn’t make it to bed until around 4:30, still not sleepy, my mind still going – but at least my thoughts had slowed because I was no longer dealing with the past swirling around but had shifted the focus to one thing – how to play Pokemon.

Waking up at 8:45, I think I must have finally fallen asleep around 5:00.

It was too hot to walk during the day but, around 7:00 this evening, I headed out and found a surprising number of Pokemon at the back side of the complex. First time I walked the complex, a raptor type bird showed up. It was too fast for me and I couldn’t catch it. Later, I ran into three other characters but, for some reason, my finger wasn’t registering on the screen and I couldn’t catch them either.

There’s a learning curve for sure, but who says “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”? It’s just going to take me a little more time, reading tutorials, trial and error to learn the nuances and probably more data on my plan.