The jeans I wore at age fourteen still fit, and I can wear my teen-aged daughter’s clothes, but despite those facts I am none the less, an immigrant user. An immigrant user, defined as anyone over the age of twenty-five that wasn’t born into the “digital age” of computers. And this is who shows up at iPhone tutorials.

Taking notes at the iPhone tutorial

A week ago when the Apple “genius” that replaced my damaged phone invited me to take an iPhone tutorial it was a euphemism for you’re old, and you need this lesson because you’ll never just pick it up on your own. He was right.

All the products that can’t prevent the inevitable

Typically a woman is confronted with signs of aging because of a physical change which begins as a subtle transmutation. But eventually the little noticed spot, line or crease solidifies into a full-blown harbinger of what’s to come. You can run but you can’t hide.

55 birthday candles for Jill

By the luck of the genetic draw I have been spared the expense of needing to dye my hair to cover gray, I have none, and therefore have avoided one of the obvious signs of aging. Jars of creams and containers of viscous liquids all promising to erase, or at least minimize the dead giveaway signs of sun damage and a youth which included smoking clutter my makeup counter. Yesterday I turned fifty-five.

Raw morning, no make-up

I didn’t need a mirror to let me know this. The crushing realization of my age echoed loud and clear when I met my fellow iPhone tutorial classmates. I was the only person under the age of seventy. With the exception of the twelve-year-old instructor, he wasn’t really twelve, it just seemed that way.

Please sit down

Stools at the front of the Aventura store were arranged for the hour-long class. They may as well have put out hospital beds and walkers. I sat down and took out a pad. That in and of itself screams Flintstone, but I couldn’t use my notes feature and learn about the phone at the same time, so I used a pen and paper.

Stars and sneakers

The teacher answered my questions and called me Miss. That was the one saving grace of my evening, and felt like a birthday present, as I have long since been called ma’am. I know more about my phone because of the tutorial, but before I left I asked the instructor if there was an App I could load to provide instruction on how to use the phone so that I would never have to take an in-store tutorial again. My phone now has the iPhone user App on it.

Green velvet heels

The click of my high heels sounded against the floor of the mall as I walked upstairs to meet my family for dinner. Sure footed knowing that I am years away from wearing sneakers on a Saturday night I called one of my friends on the way to the restaurant. My phone rang during dinner.

Photograph of Jill as a teenager – Julio Mitchel