Generation Over

I have not used AIM in years.  Like all good kids of my generation, I spent much of my adolescent in front of a screen checking away messages and talking with friends online even as I gossip about them with someone else.  And in college, IM'ing made comparing chem answers with Mac much easier than actually picking up the phone or walking down two flights of stairs.  But somewhere around the end of sophomore year, I started using AIM less and less.  GChat, I found, was much easier.  There were less people to deal with (I don't know if you know this, but I have an ardent crowd of fans on AIM) and I didn't have to sign on and off.  Thus was life for the past few years, blissfully Gchatting.  Until yesterday.  The Corporation that Never Ceases Hungering unveiled that AIM was now available in google chat.  And so, I loaded up my buddy list again after many, many moons away.  Here was my first conversation:

Kid from Long Ago: amy?

Moi: No.  Andy?  Jeff?

Kid from Long Ago: No.  Geoff.

Moi: Oh.  

And suddenly, it dawned on me.  Dear God, I really am growing old.  My mind is just not as agile as it used to be.  My brain can't retain all those screen names of years past.  And very soon, I'll turn twenty three.