The Future and Me

My friend sent me this post.

And then said she should try it. So my logic is, if I do it first, maybe I can get her to do it too.

There was never a time where I didn't think I would go to college. I knew I didn't have to, but both my parents had attended college. It made sense. When I was a nanny (after college) I worked with a kid who didn't know that college was optional. Sad.

The thing was, for years I thought I would be going to Stanford. It was where my mom went, it was nearby where I lived, and we visited the campus often for concerts and the like.

When I was in elementary school, I had it all worked out. I would go to ... I think it was called Union? for middle school, then Leigh High School (which is where I went swimming every day during the summer), and then up the peninsula for college. But then I went to high school across the street from it, so it lost some of its glitter. And I felt I needed to stretch my wings, not go someplace where I could return home on weekends and hang out with the old gang.

I had this big plan to be a computer programmer, even though I knew very little about what that actually entailed. My dad was a computer consultant/engineer as I was growing up, and I knew I liked being on the computer, so this made sense to me.

Of course, if I ever stopped to think what I liked doing on the computer, I could have saved myself a year of low grades in college. That is, I liked to type stories (and play Loadrunner, but who didn't?).

I also spent a ton of time 'playing' with my Barbies by myself. I saw 'playing' because it mostly involved staring into the huge dollhouse my dad made me when I was five and making up stories in my head. You'd think I'd pay more attention to my own interests, but as it turns out I'm just stubborn and inattentive.

As a little gal I would sometimes dress up in my fanciest dress (a slinky long thing) and my faux fur coat and go wait outside near the curb. When my mom inquired what I was up to I told her "waiting for my date to pick me up." I guess I've always been confident that I would meet a decent man, even though there were large stretches of time where it seemed no man (boy) was interested in me.

I have forever been wary about too much schoolin'. This was why when all my friends were declaring their intentions to become vetranarians, I was like "yeah, whatevs". The day I graduated high school I had a very clear thought in my head, which was "I can put up with about four more years of this, but that's it." It's also not exactly worth it to get an MA in Creative Writing. It does work out for some people, but it's definitely not necessary, and not really a way to get noticed.

As an only child, I did spend a lot of time alone. This led to some odd inside-my-own-brain rationing. Like, I needed to have a backpack of canned food, clothing, and books ready to go in case I needed to run away from home. I never encountered any issues at home that would make me want to leave it - I guess I was just well prepared ... although thinking about it now, we probably only owned one can opener, and I'm sure I didn't have that packed away. I also hid books under my mattress in case my parents went nuts on me and grounded me and took away all my books. I was grounded once, and they didn't take anything from me, just wouldn't let me play with my friends on a school day off.

I never had too many celebrity crushes ... maybe Jordan Knight as a little kid, and Harrison Ford and Conan as a teenager, although, like I said before, it's weird when you have a crush on someone mostly 'cause you actually want to be that person.

OMG, I saw the new Conan film yesterday and it's the funniest thing I've seen all year. That man is just unbelievably amazing. Not always the nicest guy, but you know what? He's funny enough so that I don't care. Which I think is part of the problem for him. But enough Conan psychosis.

And I've never had any goals to save the world. I'd like to help, but I'm not really one for delusions of grandeur.

I never really had a problem with the places I grew up in. Palo Alto was little silly for my tastes, and I sometimes felt like an outsider, but overall, it's a nice town. It's hard to feel isolated when you know you can get on a train and go to one of the gay capitals of the world.

I've always assumed I'll have kids. Kind of like I always knew I'd go to college. Having them doesn't scare me too much. Us idiots have been doing it for quite a long time, I'm sure I'll figure it out as I go along.

Um, so yes. There you go. My disjointed thoughts about how I thought about the future. Thoughts.