Confessions of an Old Soul

I am an old soul.

I collect old magazines. Old photographs adorn my walls. Old music plays from my old-looking stereo. I like old movie stars and old books, old houses and old cars. I like browsing in antique shops for old lamps and old knick knacks and old tea cups. I like old statues weathered by time.

I like old buildings and roaming around old villages and towns and taking pictures of old things.

I listen to old radio shows.

I like old letters and old diaries.

I like old people. One of my favorite persons to talk to is my grandmother.When I was in England, I enjoyed talking to old people the most. They actually wanted to talk and didn't have a set of ear buds in their ears, tuning out the world, or a cell phone glued to their fingers.

I like listening to old stories from my old relatives. I like thinking about old times and how the people lived.

But even more than that, I am "old" down to my soul. I like old-fashioned values. Family. Church. God. Loyalty. Hard work. I keep my eyes open to the modern world, but eschew its influence in many ways. I do not have cable. I often sit in my living room and listen to music while I embroider or read a book. My daughter does the same - though it's usually art or tiger research that she's working on. She plays with her toys and uses her imagination, creating these fantastical worlds where she loses herself for hours.

I take joy in the simple things of life - a cup of tea, a conversation with a friend, a nature walk, a bird's call, playing UNO with my daughter, watching my cat chase a bug or watching my daughter feed the ducks.

I don't text. I don't use my cell phone for anything other than phone calls. I don't have an iPod and when I take a walk downtown for lunch, I open myself to the world around me - all the noise and beauty and wonderment - instead of lifting myself above it and drowning it out with music.

Sometimes, I feel out of place in this constantly evolving world, one where modern technology has often taken the place of a simple conversation using complete words and voices.

I cringe when I see a young kid showing no respect for his elders or when I witness simple manners being replaced by a misplaced sense of entitlement. (I've been cringing a lot lately).

I've come to embrace this about myself. This is who I am - a mixture of old and new. After all, I love the Internet (oh, the old things I have found using it!). I love email. I love modern medicine. I love indoor plumbing!

But at my heart, I am old-fashioned. And that's ok.