A thunderstorm lesson from a digital immigrant. Going “analogue” Oh My.

I am a digital immigrant. My navigation, grammar and typing skills (normal and thumb induced) across the Internet of Things (IoT) or, as I like to refer to it all, the Thing of Things (ToT)--are atrocious.

Yesterday, just like this morning, I found myself in one of those unable to sleep moments. Woke up, made a pot of coffee, sat down at my computer to see what might be in the offing with all of my global connections and started traveling on the ToT with my probably obsolete computer and connecting via the awesome and to me somewhat mystical power of the internet.

You see at one point in my life I didn’t have a computer. At one point, I didn’t have a smart phone. At one point, I didn’t have the internet. Yes, at one point in my life, being connected meant that you picked up a phone and talked to the operator or there was someone standing right next to me having a conversation. Ok, so on this particular morning my normal conversationalist just happened to still be asleep in the other room.

So there I was in the darkness of early morning here in the Flint Hills of Kansas reading all the really interesting stuff going on around the world. Slowly but surely a storm began to make its way through the area. Lightning flashes filled the sky, thunder claps become more pronounced, and eventually the rain began.

Then, all of a sudden, I lost my internet connection.  Oh, my.

Guess what. I didn’t have a panic attack. Life as I know it didn’t stop, it actually marched on in the beauty of an early morning thunderstorm. As I became accustomed to not having internet access, I actually stopped face planting myself into my computer and took the time to go outside and stand in the rain. Ok, so I may have been a tad emboldened to do something foolish and spontaneous because on this morning my sanity checker just happened to still be asleep in the other room.

As I stood outside, I found that those little wet things called raindrops were a refreshing reminder that sometimes we just need to stop what we are doing and go dance in the rain.

“It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” Laura Ingalls Wilder