The Reset

The dreaded email arrived in my inbox again this morning - subject line reads: it's time to reset your password. Baffled at how another year has passed, and frustrated because I'm just getting used to the current password, just barely, I mentally prepare to make things harder for myself by altering it yet again so it's impossible to come to me naturally and I will most definitely have to check to confirm what it is each time I have to sign in. Lovely. While it's so tempting to use the same password as I have on a number of other sites, I know that this defeats the purpose of the update though, so I resist. Still, I remain unsure what combination of letters, both uppercase and lowercase, numbers, and special characters would be the perfect balance of easily memorable to me and secure against others easily guessing it.

While pondering this mundane task, my mind begins to wander. Following the train of thoughts, I leave the station and head down the tracks, barreling at a speed that defies safety, to wherever the next destination may be. While riding in the car, feeling more like a stow-away than the conductor, perhaps stashed away in a corner of the caboose, seemingly the last to know at each arrival and departure, I watched as the train passed by several stations. In parallel realms, it may have stopped at any of these, but in this particular realm, it chugged along steadily until it reached the location where the current daydream took place.

Resetting a password is like changing the locks on the door to your home, or maybe even your heart. The method or combination that will get you inside has been altered, but the end result is an arrival in the same location. I hold the same truths in my heart, regardless of who helps me to get to them.

This metaphor brought my thought train to a place it frequently visits: the station where the key to get me to smile was replaced when I changed out the locks to my happiness. I often return to the day in which that passcode was irrevocably altered. It’s a set of memories I look upon with warmth and gratitude, more than nearly any other in my life. The day one’s mind meets another with which it forms a special bond, is one that becomes imprinted as a core memory in one’s heart, soul, and mind. The words exchanged, the temperature outside, the heat on the third floor, the breeze of the fan and that one strand of hair that kept irritating my forehead, causing me to incessantly brush it away, repeatedly, leading to the self-conscious thought that this individual I had just met would think I’m odd, the clothes I was wearing, how insensible they were for the unseasonal heat of the day, (another point of insecurity), but how they were one of the only options given that laundry day had not taken place in several weeks, (whoops, poor timing!), the laughter, the new-found jitters, the connection that was forged, the initial uncertainty and then immediate obsession, an unquenchable thirst for more - one that hasn’t left since that day - these are all still fairly fresh in my memory, unlike any other day from that time. The details are a little hazy, sure, but the feeling is still there, that is something that will always remain.

[The train is derailed as my focus shifts back to the password reset.]

I’ll just add an exclamation point, I decide. Spruce up the old password: that’s the best way I’ve found to make a new one that will stick. It’s easy enough to remember: I just added one symbol to the end of the password I already had memorized. This is a far better alternative than forgetting something entirely new and complex and locking myself out again and heading back to step one. Take from that what you will: sometimes you can’t change the key to your heart too drastically - you need to start with the same formula that worked the last time.