When I Grow Up I Intend To:

I have been procrastinating on learning monologues for my auditions in April. Today saw a fantastic amount of non-memorizing productivity – the bathroom is clean and so is my room. I actually sorted through a box of letters and cards, the oldest of which dates from my seventh birthday. No kidding.

In there I found a list that I wrote a long time ago. I don’t know when I wrote it, as there is no date, but this is what I wrote, verbatim, except for things in [these] which are my present day comments.

[The handwriting is very similar to my current writing, so I must have been in my teens]

12:36 – I just saw a cow moose outside of DeBolt. It was eating a willow.

[Then, in smaller, neater and more determined printing]

When I grow up I intend to –

take riding lessons and perhaps own a horse.
take violin lessons [at some point I wrote in the margin, ‘started @ 17 yrs’]
speak another language (romantic pref.) (Italian or Spanish)
be a surgeon perhaps.
ski and swim regularly.
own property (house and land)
act
travel
write, paint, sketch, and read classics (and interesting stuff).
go hiking
own a bird
critique movies
be a good cook.
not take things for granted.
maybe work the medical side of crime: i.e forensics or coroner.
hunt or belong to a gun club/shooting range
learn martial arts

[Then, at the bottom…]

Meet in front of M.B. @ 2 or so.


I have no hope of achieving that last note, since I have no idea what it means, but I liked reading the list and seeing the future life I had plotted out for myself. I was a pretty savvy kid – a lot of that list is still completely relevant to what I want today.

I think I’d add:

fall in love [and in the margin I could write, ‘started @ 22yrs’]
publish a book

I put the list back in the box, by the way. In several years, when I next sort through that box, I can remember…and see how many of the margins I can write ‘started @ **yrs’ in then…