Disordered thinking and parallel conversations

Originally posted to my Facebook on August 17, 2026

When I was in high school, I was offered a job working for a software startup. The husband in a family I babysat for worked as a stockbroker. At some point in the rise of interest rates (1986-1989), he could see the market turning, and saw an opportunity to launch his fledgling company for a new stock trading software on the Apple platform. At the time I joined the company, it was just the owner, some behind the scenes investors, and an older-lady receptionist.

Keep in mind this was the 1980s when home computers were just becoming a thing, and Apple's Macintosh were more user friendly than the IBM DOS. The older lady and I overlapped a few months. Once the boss taught me the file system and how to process credit card transactions, he let the older-lady go. He tried to explain to me, she was a lovely person, but didn't quite get what he was working toward. I commented something like, 'Oh, she just operates on a different wavelength.' And he agreed.

We've all had grandparents, I assume, who simply lived a different (and perhaps in some ways, a simpler) life. Without the latest tech, the need for things to be instantaneous, wasn't really a thing - unless you were talking about obeying your mom (or dad . . . depending on who wore the pants in your family).

I don't necessarily think the receptionist suffered from disordered thinking, geriatric dementia, or even old-age. She was just raised in a different era. And I wonder how much of what we expect from children & teens in (the pressure-cooker of modern) life, is the result of disordered thinking about child development and how we acquire skills, as well as sound judgement . . . sans experience making lots of our own mistakes.

Then again, I'm reminded from time to time that my mind is the one operating on a different wavelength. I've described many a conversation to my sister(s), only to have them reveal the subtext, plot, or true nature of the discussion from what I tell them didn't make sense to me, at the time (or even later).

It makes complete sense that my sons and I would sometimes have parallel conversations. They are boys (men), 21+ years younger than me, and experienced a different home life, school system, and religious upbringing than me. When I have mom-brain, I'm not always focused on the details of what they are telling me at the time. Their sense of urgency, or desire to communicate slips my notice; because there was so much conversation in my home growing up - toddlers to teens and in-betweens. I forget, they (my sons) rarely talk, just to canvas the day. It nearly always has a specific purpose (the limited utterances), and if I don't catch it the first time, it may not come back around again during my lifetime.