Age and Priorities

Last week, I gave my Creative Writers an exercise that went something like this:

Describe what was important to you at age: 5? 10? 15? Now? (My students are mostly right at 20 years old). (<--source, What If)

The purpose was for them to remember. To look back and see that we, as humans, change and grow and mature as years progress. That what was super-important to us as a child has been replaced by something else. And that our characters, too, at certain ages, have very specific needs/desires/wants.

The results were wonderful -- the students seemed to embrace the exercises and got quite detailed in their analysis.

So, I thought I'd do mine, here, just as an exercise (hee, I had to "spread out" the ages to make it fit):

What was important to me at age:

5 - impressing my kindergarten teacher; obeying my parents (I was a "good girl," yep); reading; my dog Tibby; learning to roller skate and hoola-hoop; making new friends; carting my little sister around in a red wagon.

15 - learning to drive(!); doing well in school; listening to music (Van Halen, Wham!, Restless Heart, Whitney Houston) and making music (solos in church, band and choir at school); making/keeping friends (hard to do in high school!); wearing 80's bright colors and poofy hair; church; wishing and praying that my biggest crush (he later turned into a full-fledged first love the following year) would like me the way I liked him. *sigh* Those were heartbreaking years...

25 - trying to keep my new-ish marriage afloat (this wasn't my first love, btw); moving to yet another city, trying to find yet another job, decorating yet another tiny apartment; trying to find new friends, another new church; fighting loneliness and depression over all these new changes, seemingly out of my control; writing (<---my solace, my comfort, my escape!)

NOW (40-something) - being the best teacher I can be; being the best doggie-mama I can be (2 dogs, Sheltie, Corgi); writing (and hoping to be published); finding happiness in day-to-day challenges; fighting off the occasional wee mid-life crisis; accepting myself, even when my life doesn't "look like" my friends' lives (aka, married w/ kids); being SO grateful for things like healthy grandparents and parents, niece and nephews, good health for myself, a secure job, health insurance, etc (all the practical things seem to matter more, now).

Really interesting, to see priorities change over the years -- usually from the materialistic to the realistic and more mature...