The Mid Life Dating Files 2025

Write about your first computer.

My First Computer (a.k.a. The Furniture-Sized Stress Machine)

I don’t really remember my first computer… which probably tells you everything you need to know about how long ago it was. What I do remember is that it was HUGE. Like, not “sleek Apple aesthetic” huge—more like “this thing doubles as a nightstand” huge.

It took forever to boot up. And when I say forever, I mean you could turn it on, go make a sandwich, come back, and it would still be thinking about whether today was the day it wanted to cooperate.

We had floppy disks. Actual floppy disks. The kind that held approximately three words and a prayer. If you lost one, your entire life’s work was gone. No cloud. No backup. Just vibes.

And let’s talk about the dial-up internet. That sound still lives rent-free in my head. The screeching. The beeping. The robotic choking noise that let you know the internet might be coming… eventually. You couldn’t use the phone while it connected, and it took so long that by the time you got online, you forgot what you were even trying to look up.

Technology in the 80s and 90s required patience. A lot of it. And honestly? I had none. I remember getting so frustrated waiting on things to load that I’d just give up entirely. Back then, nothing synced. Nothing shared. Nothing magically appeared on another device. You saved your work and hoped for the best.

We didn’t have Google. We definitely didn’t have ChatGPT. If you needed information, you went to the library. In person. With books. And if the book was checked out? Well… guess you weren’t learning that today.

It’s wild to think about how far we’ve come. Now we carry laptops in our bags, entire libraries in our pockets, and tiny computers on our wrists. My Apple devices all sync together like they’re best friends. I can AirDrop photos in seconds. Back then? Sending something took FOREVER—and half the time it didn’t even work.

Do I miss how simple life was back then? Absolutely. Our lives were slower. Quieter. Healthier. We didn’t know how lucky we were. At the same time, having this much information at our fingertips is both incredible and a little dangerous. Too much information is a real thing.

Still, I’ll take today’s technology over that big ol’ dial-up computer any day. But every once in a while, when my Wi-Fi lags for two seconds and I feel myself getting annoyed, I remind myself: at least I don’t hear that dial-up tone anymore.

And for that, I am truly grateful. 😅