I’ve written before about going back and reading all of my journals. I’m doing something important with them. But in order to do that, I had to get all of them out of the foot locker/trunk that I have kept them in since I first went to college. In that trunk was a collection of mementos from various points in my life. Most of these were from around the time I was a senior in high school. There was a scrapbook I made of my senior year, the literary magazine of which I was the co-editor (though that was my junior year), and this gem, a school newspaper.
This edition of the paper asked the same five questions of every senior. When I read what I said about myself 25 years ago, I was incredulous. The word “Really?!” immediately came out of my mouth. I thought it might be fun to make fun of what I said back then and what I would say now.
2000
Name: Not a chance that I’ll be sharing that.
Says A Lot: “I know, right?” (It’s actually quite ironic that I chose that phrase because earlier that year, I remember hearing people use that phrase for the first time and I always thought it sounded stupid and contradictory. “I know” is a statement acknowledging something. “Right?” is a question where you are seeking validation or confirmation. What kind of sense is it to put them together in one sentence? Apparently by the end of that year I had given in and used it regularly).
Where will you be in 10 years? Living in the mountains teaching elementary kids. (Almost accurate. I did get accepted into the three biggest universities in the mountains of my state. I didn’t go to any of them. Thanks, Dad. But I was teaching elementary aged kids in 10 years).
Personalized License Plate: I LUV JC (Jim Carrey). (I remember that I insisted on putting Jim Carrey in parenthesis, lest anyone get confused and think I meant Jesus Christ. The horror!
One word to describe you: Eccentric (Really?! What does that even mean in terms of describing a person??? The dictionary says an eccentric person behaves in odd or unusual ways. I don’t think that was what I was trying to say. I think I meant eccentric as in I liked a lot of different things and was just a different and unique person. I’m sure that’s what I thought about myself, but I don’t think that was me. My music taste was (and still is) eccentric. I had 2Pac c.d.’s in the same stereo c.d. changer as Garth Brooks and the Partridge Family—my teen angst heart really liked that “I Think I Love You” song. Eccentric I was not).
2025
Name: CathyMack62 (That’s all you get for now).
Says A Lot: “Right?!” (Sigh. I can write well and use all kinds of different words in a crafty way. I don’t actually talk like that though. I will admit defeat in the fact that I haven’t outgrown this simple repetitive word/phrase. It is in fact, a shortened version of what I “said a lot” when I was 17).
Where Will You Be in 10 Years?: This exact same spot on my couch. (Seriously. I’m 42 years old, ain’t much going to change in the next 10 years).
Personalized License Plate: K1, YO, K2tog (Or some variation of that. Some people will see that and wonder what the hell does that mean?! Other people, that is, my people, will see that and wonder what kind of project I’ve got “on the needles”. Are you one of my people? Lol! Those are random abbreviations from a knitting pattern. K1, YO, K2tog means “knit 1 stitch, yarn over, knit 2 stitches together”. I could also throw similar crochet pattern abbreviations on there to weed out my people. Of course, I could be sinister and confuse the hell out of my people by mixing the two).
One Word to Describe You: Enough. (I honestly just thought of that word. I found this newspaper a couple months ago and have been marinating on this topic for a while. That original word, eccentric, made me cringe, but I didn’t know what I would replace it with now. I’ve thought about it and couldn’t really think of one. I’m too wordy. I can’t describe myself in one word. Maybe I can do it in five. But “enough” seems very fitting right now. I am enough. I am good enough, I am brave enough, I am tough enough. The beauty of that word is, I think it would still describe me in that 10 year span the other question asked about).
This was a fun little reflection to do. Maybe I should make a note to ask myself these questions every time a new year rolls around. Like how you ask a kid every year what they want to be when they grow up to see how their answers do (or don’t) change over the years.
I’m curious, what is the one word that you all would use to describe yourself?
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