Backspace.

I'm a child of technology.

I don't remember life without telephones, or TVs, or even computers. I still remember our first computer: blue screen, with a flashing yellow cursor waiting for MS-DOS prompts. I became very proficient in entering "a:/" followed by "hangman" or "animal" or "lemmings" (which were some of the  first words I learned to spell, coincidentally). I've never lived a life without screens or buttons. I've never lived life without backspace.

I truly think that backspace has become the root of many problems faced by my peers. We type at 70 words per minute because we don't have to worry about an accidental keystroke (I used the backspace key 17 times in that sentence). We can delete any mistakes instantly; no one will know they occurred. And even if the whole system crashes, we can turn to delete plus its ctrl + alt friends to reset everything to the way it was.

We don't use bumper stickers. We skip out on RSVPs. We wait until the last minute to confirm. We never make true commitments, because a backspace on a bumper sticker leaves a sticky residue, and if we commit to attending one event we don't have the option of attending another.

I find myself disillusioned, caught up in a world of uncertainty because no one likes choices that involve irreversibility. We've always had opportunity to rewrite the paper, or waffle on the decision, or re-do the failed test. It's easy to forget that time is linear when you live the same day over and over again, with minor variations. It's hard to realize that what you do on Tuesday, May 7 will never be undone, because you know that Tuesday, May 14 will hold many of the same opportunities and circumstances; you can pick and choose which memories to delete or augment, to highlight or omit. It isn't until we reach our major milestones that we realize that not everything in life has a backspace.


As I've reached the mid-twenties mark, I realize more and more that life is hurdling toward precipices of the unknown, with no backspace key to give mulligans. Friends graduating, getting married, moving away, moving closer, having children, severing ties... all things that don't involve a backspace.

On the eve of another graduation, there are many who face such a precipice. Moving out, moving on; moving up. Finishing 16, 17, 18 years of education, and getting a piece of paper to prove it. Moving away, moving forward; moving beyond the study groups and extracurriculars, moving farther from close-knit friends. Life beyond the cliff is scary because we've fooled ourselves into thinking we've been on repeat all along. It's only when we reach the precipice that we realize our backspace has been a placebo.

Moving forward is scary. But backspacing the past is scarier.