I walked outside today for the first time in forever (I’m being dramatic). I spent yesterday stationed in front of a screen. I had a running list of assignments to get done, and unfortunate for me, my second monitor isn’t as portable as my dear ol’ laptop.
Hi, my name is Brittany, and I come from Gen Z, where we have faked mastering the art of multitasking — I never work without two split screens and five tabs open per window across the three desktops I slide through using four fingers on the touchpad of my laptop, multiplied by two when you add in my unfortunately non-portable, second monitor. My love language is the split seconds it takes for pages to load.
We’ve become an impatient people.
I spend my time type type typing away. I widen my eyes, blink hard when the characters on the screen start blurring together. I’d shake my head, but I have come to live with this permanent, mild migraine, and it would be unfortunate to make that worse.
My hands grip the edge of my desk, and I roll my chair towards and away and back towards again. I release my grip. I thank myself for buying a rolly chair (is that the official word for it?) because roll roll rolling around gives me some type of short reprieve. My heart pangs because I miss being active.
I sigh, shake my head anyways, and move to sit on the edge of my seat. I’m restless, so no sooner do I scoot my butt back to sit criss-cross apple sauce. It’s not the right posture to be type type typing away, but we settle. This year has just been settling — lots and lots of settling.
I spent all of yesterday staring at this screen. Blink blink blink. Type type type. I have forgotten what writing feels like.
Since when do people write without pressing keys? Amateurs — get with the program already.
brittany given. 