Grace In Motion

I Finally Got the Computer

In 1995 or 1996, I got my first computer. I think it was an HP Windows 95. On it lived a video of my favorite band at the time, Weezer, playing Buddy Holly.

I loved that computer so much.

I didn’t just buy a machine, I arrived. Finally.

As a kid growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, I wanted a computer more than anything. Every year, I asked Santa for one. Back then, PCs weren’t common in homes, but one of my friends had one. Her father worked at Hewlett-Packard, so their family had a computer long before most people did. I remember standing near it, watching the screen glow, knowing somehow that it mattered.

Each year, Santa tried. Just not in the way I imagined.

One year, Santa brought me a typewriter.
Okay fine. At least I could type. I wrote stories, clacking away, pretending I was a real writer. I wish I’d kept those pages. I wonder what happened to them.

Another year, Santa brought me a sewing machine.
Also not bad. I learned to make my own clothes. That skill stuck. It taught me independence, creativity, and patience, lessons I didn’t recognize at the time.

But this, this computer, was different.

Now I was an adult. I was working at HP myself. I saved up a lot of money to buy it, but it was mine. No sharing. No asking permission. No, hoping someone else would decide I was ready.

I could get on the internet… Dial up.
I could send emails to faraway friends and family, which felt like quiet magic. But mostly, if I’m honest, it was a very expensive word processor.

And still, I loved it.

Because it wasn’t just about technology. It was about finally having a place to put my words. A screen that waited for me. A small confirmation that the girl who wanted to write, create, and connect hadn’t been wrong for wanting those things all along.

Sometimes arrival doesn’t look dramatic.
Sometimes it looks like a beige computer, a grainy music video, and the deep satisfaction of typing whatever you want, whenever you want, on something that is finally yours.

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• Maybe God answers prayers sideways first, typewriters, sewing machines, patience, until we’re ready to receive what we asked for all along.
• Looking back, I see that the longing itself was formative. The waiting shaped the arrival.
• I didn’t just get a computer. I got permission from myself.