This is the last thing I’m going to say about Joy’s traveling shoes. On September 10, 2026, at exactly 6:34 a.m. Central Time, Joy’s shoes were shredded into insulation.
I know that because that is the exact moment the AirTag stopped working. After traveling from St. Louis to Kansas City, Louisville, Miami, Cocoa Beach, Harrisburg, and finally Oceanside, New York, the little pink glitter shoes—and apparently the AirTag tucked inside one of them—met the industrial shredder.
End of story.
So today I want to talk about something completely different: the pace of change.
I don’t particularly like change. And lately it seems as though everything has to become newer, faster, smarter, and more complicated every twelve months (or sooner). There’s a new iPhone every year. The latest one, the iPhone 18, has enough battery life to watch something like 36 hours of movies on a single charge. Why?
Seriously. Why?
Let’s say watching movies is your full-time occupation. You wake up and watch movies for eighteen straight hours. At some point, presumably, you have to sleep. Charge the phone then. Apparently these things can get a full charge in less than an hour.
Problem solved.
Last year I drove a rental GMC Yukon that seemed slightly more intelligent than I am. The seat vibrated if I was driving a bit faster than the cars in front of me. It had night vision. It had hands-free driving capabilities.
Hands-free driving? Hell to the no.
I want to hold the steering wheel. I want to decide where the car goes. I don’t need my seat giving me a massage every time the truck in front of me slows down to the speed limit.
Maybe I’m becoming an old man. I’m okay with that. And maybe that’s one of the reasons I love watching Joy so much.
Joy does not need the newest version of anything. Give her a stack of coloring pages and some crayons. Or, better yet, a blank piece of paper and something to write with. She loves bike rides. Puzzles. Dolls. Hide-and-seek. Hugs. Kisses.
And every morning, without fail, she tickles my feet. There is no software update required. No new model coming next September that promises to tickle my feet 37 percent faster.
Just Joy.
I know change is necessary. Some of it is wonderful. Some of it makes our lives easier, safer, and healthier. I’m certainly not suggesting we all throw our phones into the same shredder that ate Joy’s shoes.
But I do wonder sometimes if we’ve confused change with progress. If something can be made faster, we make it faster. If it can be automated, we automate it. If it can have a screen attached to it, somebody will attach a screen to it. (Our thermostat has a screen that tells me the temperature in Celsius. I don’t know how to change it to Fahrenheit. And I can’t do the conversion in my head, but I’ve discovered that 23 degrees C feels about right for the summer.)
Meanwhile, Joy is sitting at the table with a coloring page. (And I’m right next to her. She insists that I put my phone on the charger during coloring time. I love that.)
Or she’s hiding somewhere in the house and giggling so loudly that finding her requires absolutely no detective work.
Maybe she has it right. The world can keep upgrading itself every year.
Some of the best things in my life don’t need an upgrade at all.
Joy Elizabeth 