Early Indicators of My Life to Come

I recently found a sheet of paper that I had begun to cover with lists, circa 1997 or 1998. It seems like maybe I was going to make a scrapbook or something because there are notes like “picture” or “draw” after some things. This was during an era when I used lined paper but didn't respect the margins or the lines. I remember thinking I was conserving paper? Let me be clear, though—the lines of writing are still parallel to the lines on the paper. Not diagonal or anything. There was method amidst my madness. Left brain and right brain each asserting themselves.

The following are a selection of the more amusing/notable lists, with my present day thoughts about them in [brackets]. It is amusing to see what is the same and what has changed since nearly half my life ago.

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Favorite Food:

• Cool Whip [heck yeah!]
• cheesecake [over it]
• steak [I am my father's daughter]
• pizza [always and forever]
• fruit
• OCPs [Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies]
• mushrooms [really?]
• fruit snacks [meh]
• turkey
• grease [ew. Did I mean, like, greasy foods? Like french fries?]
• ice cream
• baked beans [srsly?]
• cocktail shrimp

     [notably missing: Bacon, and my childhood favorite mashed potatoes]

Favorite Clothes:

• yellow sweater
• bleached jeans [??? perhaps I meant normal jeans that had gotten bleached accidentally?]
• long sleeve overshirts [by this I totally mean oversized men's button-down shirts, which remained a favorite long into the 00s, and which I'd probably still be wearing now if my husband hadn't intervened]
• socks [all of them]
• Nikes [sandals]
• Dr. Martens [brown boots; still have!]
• yellow scarf
• purple hat [fisherman's style, plaid; still my favorite hat to wear on vacation, as seen here]
• corduroy pants
• white t-shirts

Addictions:

• Mike [boyfriend]
• email [nerd! Also, emailing aforementioned boyfriend]
• Nintendo [N64: GoldenEye, Mario Kart, Mario 64]

     [These could have been so much worse, amiright?!]

Favorite Subjects:

• Math
• Stats
• French

     [It wasn't until Math 285 (Honors Calc 3) that I realized math is hard, and I should be a Creative Writing major.]

Favorite Movie:

• The Scarlet Pimpernel [1982 version, NOT the one from 2000! 1934 version isn't bad either.]

Favorite TV shows:

• Hogan's Heroes
• Cartoon Planet [Space Ghost]
• JAG [only because I watched it every week with my dad when I went to his house for dinner]

Favorite Colors:

• Yellow
• Blue

     [destined to be a Michigan Wolverine]

Favorite Stories/Books:

• The Lady or the Tiger?
• Howliday Inn
• Dictionary/Thesaurus [nerd!]
• A Treasury of the Familiar [classic poems]
• Scarlet Pimpernel

Favorite Songs:

     [Redacted, or rather omitted and saved for a future post. There is just too much to analyze there!]


Favorite People:

     [Redacted to protect the relationships I currently have with the people who didn't make the list!]


Favorite Verses:

• Joshua 1:9 - “This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
• Ephesians 4:26b-27 - “Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.”
• Philippians 1:3 - “I thank my God every time I remember you.”
• Psalm 23 [punctuation is important! “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want” vs. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Silly King James Version. It might have been clearer if I had learned the New Living Translation]
• Romans 12

Future Plans:

• get married
• be happy

     [Check and check! But perhaps this lack of vision explains why my 20s were so directionless.]


Misc. Dislikes:

• pants with hammer-holders from my childhood [seriously, why did these exist? I owned zero hammers as a child.]
• yellow and green together [Attributed to my strong dislike of the Oakland Athletics baseball team as a kid.]
• puzzles of nature [??? Oh, Matt says I probably meant jigsaw puzzles of fields and flowers, which I still dislike! Not like the Fibonacci sequence.]
• soft chalk [dunno why this was a thing]
• flirty younger boys [SERIOUSLY! I never went out with anyone younger. Apparently I found them all impertinent.]

Misc. Likes:

• Dr. Pepper lip balm
• writing utensils [woo, PotMC!]
• jewelry
• quotations
• containers
• creative writing

Fears:

• loneliness [cliché, but understandable]
• tape/stickers [this has lots of caveats, but we all get one irrational fear, right?]
• carrying too much [I got over this one, because it is apparently in my nature to carry a lot of stuff at one time, but I still don't prefer it]
• criticism [ditto “loneliness”]
• working hard [I don't recall what I was getting at. Did I fear a life of laboring in the fields?]
• being tardy to class [not because I would be late and miss something, but because it was “wrong” and I was/am a rule follower]