passwords...shhh it's a secret

So I have a general password. for just about everything.

I use it at work and add number combinations behind it to differentiate between passwords that are "used" and therefore no longer valid.

So I was doing some banking stuffs and I had to call USAA. I had to set up a password because they will no longer be asking me to identify myself my telling them my fathers birth year... who knows that anyways... ( me! I guessed and it was right!!)

so I gave him the password and then they need a "hint" word. So if I forget my password They can give me a hint.

My hint word is a common weed... and it has NOTHING to do with my password.

So I was at work, trying NOT to think about the 50 odd co-workers that got laid off today... including my week one match-up in Fantasy Football... and I contemplated the irony that my common weed would make me thing of my password.

I'm home now and I'm still trying not to think about it. I can only handle so much of people I am close to being ripped away from my sphere of influence. Today's layoff has so over tipped the scale that I'm numb. In addition to James, in addition to the boys.

SO here are my thoughts.

Memories sometimes come with smells, salt free eggs and toast are the smell of early morning seminary. Sometimes they come with sounds, when I hear "Where's the girl" from the Scarlet Pimpernel I am transported back to the musical and the palpable tension the actor and actress brought to the music.

I have a plant memory. Just a common garden weed, but The feelings it's name evokes are overwhelmingly powerful to me.

This common weed is the memory of my cousins coming to visit. We were showing off our friends, their houses, and beach, and Texas in general. By the Nielson's old house on Oil Field Rd, there were longhorns. Naturally they were a stop on our tour of Sugar Land. I was so happy that they were there and so proud to have fantastical beasts and what not to show off. Aunt Jenell commented on a weed that was growing throughout the pasture. We picked the flowers and admired them. It was such a great memory, not outstanding in wonders or insight, but infused with contented joy.

Years later I was setting up my very first e-mail. I needed a user name and I picked one, probably something dumb, and was then required to enter a password. I remember the excitement of this moment. My stomach was all in knots. I was making an E-MAIL!! I was really grown up now! I picked my password (which is the same one I have used ever since.. I'm loyal like that :P) and they asked for a prompt. I remembered vividly for some reason the summer that my cousins came to visit. The common weed that we had admired seemed to epitomize the experience and has become a symbol of something beautiful and perfect, and happy. I was feeling happiness and wonder and excitement akin to that summer and named the weed as my prompt.


Later I realized that I could have ANOTHER e-mail address. I also realized how dumb my first one was. So I picked another much cooler name, but I was having trouble coming up with a password. My original password had a connection to my e-mail address via a movie I like so it was easier from then on to remember my password. The three words, my user name, password and prompt are now intrinsically locked together in a memory of the wonder of making my first e-mail address and the feeling of ultimate happiness.


So the memory of a weed really does remind me of my password; even though they are really truly not related in any other way.