By Amy H.
Almost exactly 20 years ago I sat solemnly at a fake wood laminate table in my high school library with a copy of the Senior Time Capsule Packet before me, attempting to accurately predict what I would be doing five, 10 and then 20 years into the future. Wearing my dad's faded and peeling fraternity sweatshirt, black leggings and China flats, I felt confident that the next 10 years would find me still in school, working diligently towards my doctorate in psychology, my plan since the age of 13.
Then my pen came to an abrupt halt, hovering over the question about my 20-year forecast. Surely I would be done with school by then, so how would I be spending my time? Working full-time as a counselor, I jotted down with some degree of certainty. Would I have children, and if so, how many? One… or two, I wrote more tentatively. Which genders? Definitely girls. What ages? Hmm, they'll probably be 12 years old and 10 years old by then. And who was to be their father? I peered out cautiously from behind my asymmetrical hairdo at the faces of the other students in the library. Did I know my future husband already? Would I end up back here in my hometown after college, and would my child one day be sitting at this very table?
Today I'm preparing for the trip back to my 20th high school reunion, a five and a half hour flight and what seems like a lifetime away from the place that I've come to call home. I just finished teaching a class at the university where I'm employed as a part-time professor, an arrangement that still allows me to call myself a stay-at-home mom. I'm packing up swimsuits for my two children, a boy, age 6, and a girl, age 3, who have brought me more joy than my teenage mind could envision. I've been talking over rental car plans with my husband, whom I didn't meet until I moved far away from that laminate table, but who seems to know me better than anyone I have known since childhood.
Perhaps my Senior Time Capsule Packet will be waiting there for me at the reunion, filled with all the goals and fantasies that an 18-year-old could dream up, a self-contract in purple ink. On the surface, I followed my life plan, but like bad driving directions the general route was correct (go right for 2.3 miles then go left for 1.7 miles then go on and on and on for 60-plus years), but some enormously important details that significantly changed my journey were inaccurate or altogether missing.
Soon I'll find my way back for a tour of the new high school library, laminate replaced with oak, wide wondering eyes replaced with wiser contented ones.
How do your high school predictions compare to who you are today?
Amy Heesacker is a thirty-something SAHM and part-time psychology professor living in the deep South with her husband and two children.
Hello Amy!
Beautiful post, reminded my childhood memories and thoughts. Well I never thought of doing something which I am doing today. Life was/is not the easy for me but we have to keep going and be happy with what we have got or going to get, then only we can live happy.
I hope you are going to have a wonderful time...enjoy it, feel it, and add them in your beautiful life.
http://www.theparentszone.com/
Posted by: healthwatchcenter | August 09, 2007 at 02:44 AM
You know, that is interesting to me because I know of people like you who lay out plans for their lives and then set a course and more or less get there. I seem to be a river on a current going here and there and living out many different lives. I certainly would have never predicted being windowed at 34, remarring at 38 and then having my first baby in my mid-40s. Or blogging about it! I guess for me life is more of an uncertain adventure than a well thought out plan. One thing for sure, there are no HS reunions for me in my future.
Good post Amy!
Posted by: Account Deleted | August 07, 2007 at 08:07 AM