My Cyber Life....

The title of this blog alone is making me LOL! I have a cyber life. Imagine that? 

When my parents were 39ish I had to set up the television, rig up the VCR, figure out how to put batteries in things and I was deemed to be a genius by all the adults around me. Ha! Now I'm 39 and not only do I have a cyber life, my parents and even my great aunt do too! I play on-line scrabble with my 89 year old great aunt everyday. My mother, who is a fantastic artist, has her art exposed on-line on a website shared by her peers. My father lives in South America and he Skypes me everyday. How cool is that?

There are of course down sides and there is also on-line etiquette. As a blogger you don't reveal people's names and you do your very best to not offend anyone. I have managed the first but, in my short time blogging, I haven't managed the latter, and as a result managed to lose two friends in the process: a virtual one and a real one. So then not only do you have to agree to disagree, you then have your online ties severed - which must really feel like closure, and perhaps even satisfaction for the angered party.

The other down side is trying to mange your teenagers cyber life too. The advice? Don't write anything on-line that you wouldn't say to someone's face (hmmm should really have followed my own advice there). Then you have the cowards who come along and use the internet to harass your children. Lovely.  Life is complicated enough.

But what I've realised and I have adopted from my friend Miss Stand-Up-On-That-Scales-In-The-Middle-Of-The-Department-Store is this: don't create problems, solve problems. I love it! I have adopted this mantra, and I have even started to impart this advice to my children. I feel empowered, I feel responsible for my actions and in no way a victim of any circumstance. 

My 20 or even 30 year old self would never have been able to say the same.....