10 years from now....

Wow! What the fuck was I thinking?

So, when I think back on what I expected myself to being doing at the ripe age of ‘25’ I knew that I had thought, earlier on, say when I was like 5 – 9 that I would be a lot ‘further along’ in my life than I actually am. That is, I can envision myself thinking that I would be married, with kids etc. I did not think that in grade 9, at the age of 15 I would have thought this. Come on, I mean that’s only 10 years in the future, think back on what had changed from when you were 5. Well, okay, maybe not the best comparison but still. In any case, I found this project that we had to do in Grade 9 tonight while cleaning out my old desk. It was a project called “relationships” we had to design a big scrapbook and part of this was to fill out exercises. When I was reading over them I was more than surprised by many of my answers a mere 10 years later (not least of which apparently a paradigm shift in my perception of just how long 10 years is – then it seemed like a galaxy away, you know the way that movies would predict that by the year 1992 we would be driving cars which we could fly – and now, as denoted earlier in this run-on sentence – it’s a “mere” 10 years, sigh). I can also now only imagine what my teacher must have thought reading these things, I hope to god she laughed at our naïveté, and did not think these were great life plans (that may be a whole other issue). [Hmm. Although a lot of this was reality for my parents by this age, yikes].

In any case, I thought I’d share with you some of the amusing/disturbing contents of this scrapbook.


Exercise: Ten Years from Now (Completed on April 19, 1996)
[the exercise was divided into two columns, I’ve included the prediction column, the other was parental influence as you see it, only one of my choices seem to be ‘in reaction’ to that; the where will you live]

Your Prediction about your life
My family will consist of . . .
“My husband, 1-2 kids (my kids may be adopted).”
[um yikes. TWO kids!?!]

My lifestyle will be . . .
“Comfortable, I’ll be able to pay bills and have money left over for what I want.”
[ha ha ha ha ha … oh, this isn’t even half true, sigh]

I expect my career to be . . .
“In the field of education.”
[WTF? Seriously? I don’t know if I just put this down to have something ‘tangeiable’ i.e. the vast majority of people who seem to move on to BEd’s after BA’s, or if I really wanted to do this, in retrospect…..]

I will live in . . .
“the suburbs of a city in Ireland. In a country home, with a large yard.”
[God, did I do drugs? I get the Ireland thing, I was obsessed so like wish fulfilment, but the burbs??? They scare me so.]

In my leisure time. I’ll probably . . .
“Go to concerts, movies, theatre, sports, games, travel and exercise.”
[Hmmm. Apparently I was more active then. Sigh.]

Okay, the next exercise of interest I found was having us identify the “correct” stages of the “Family Life Cycle”. Um, for the record they were: “1. Newlywed Stage; 2. Expanding Family Stage; 3. Crowded Years Stage; 4. Teenage Stage; 5. Launching Stage; 6. Empty Nest Stage; 7. Retirement Stage.”

[Dear Exercise: Oh what the 21st Century, nay, reality has in store for you…]

Hm. Story checks out on another exercise whereby I identify two situations I don’t like: “Being somewhere where I don’t know anyone” and “When I can’t stop worrying”

Hehehe. Okay the following are exercises aimed at ascertaining my “Values”

Exercise: Complete these statements individually:
(a) If I won a million dollars I would: “Pay off my parents’ bills, then put the rest in the bank”
(c) If I could only be granted three wishes, I’d wish for: “World peace, world hunger to be solved; for everyone to be happy almost all of the time” [ah, yes, world peace, I guess I was practicing for a beauty pageant? Though, I kinda like the for everyone to be happy ALMOST all of the time, it’s intriguing compared to my other answers]
(e) If I could have any job in the world: “I would be a musician” [probably still true except for the whole no musical talent thing]
(f) If I could give children only one piece of advice: “It would be not to hate anyone or anything and to teach their children the same.” [I can practically hear someone like Curtis saying, God you were always such a fucking hippie]
(l) If I could meet any famous person of my choice: “It’d be Bono from U2” [A-HA did THAT, take that in 10 years exercise!!!]
(m) If I could get into a time machine I would travel to: “the beginning of the world or the end of the world so I could see what it was like, what caused it and if there was anything I could do to make it better (beginning) or prevent it (end)” [Gag, my wide eyed optimism is starting to make even me sick]
(n) If I could change one thing in the world: “I would change the thoughts and attitudes of apathetic and hateful people”

Exercise – was to rank the following “values” Here’s what I ranked them
1. Salvation [weirded out]
2. Freedom
3. Self-respect
4. world of peace
5. family security
6. mature love
7. true friendship [guess I don’t put bros before hos]
8. equality [ummm I remember agonizing over a hierarchical approach to this then, and if I were more cool hippie I would have refused to do this on similar grounds instead I conformed, sigh]
9. Inner harmony
10. Happiness
11. National security
12. Sense of accomplishment
13. Wisdom
14. World of beauty (what seriously?)
15. pleasure
16. social recognition
17. a comfortable life
18. an exciting life [well, my life doesn’t disappoint this ranking]

Things that bug me (all written on lady bugs I crafted from construction paper – when did I stop being crafty?)

“war, racism and prejudice”; “People who can’t keep secrets”; “When people leave their blinkers on after they’ve made the turn” [ummm clearly the same level as war]; “People who judge other people way too fast”; “People who hang around with people then ditch them for someone else” [oh the politics of junior high, wait, life]; “People who think they are better than everyone else”; “People who leave a little bit of milk in the container”; “People who are rich and think they own the world.”


Exercise: Number 5 qualities you look for in a friend in order of importance:
1. Trustworthy
2. Honest
3. Good sense of humour
4. Good Listener
5. Considerate