18-Year Glimpse

It was recently brought to my attention that it's been 18 years since I graduated high school. I don't know how that happened because, in my mind, I'm still young and hip. But looking around, that is clearly not the case. Other than living on the same planet, I have exactly nothing in common with the modern-day 18-year-old. And when I look in the mirror, the face staring back at me belongs to someone else. I swear I don't look like that!

My graduation in 2002

I'm the fifth from the left (unrecognizable, I know)

I often wonder what 18 year-old me (18YOM) would have thought if she'd been able to see 18 years into the future. Like most 18 year olds, I was a bit naive about... uh... well... everything. There's nothing wrong with that. It is what it is. But with that naivety, I think I might have looked at 36YOM in complete disbelief.

Let's take a look at what 18YOM was like...

At 18, I knew I was going to get married soon. Scotty was 21, and we weren't engaged yet, but we were engaged to be engaged. We were just waiting until I reached the wise, old age of 19 (because everybody knows 19 year-olds are perfectly ready to get married!) I was a student at LDS Business College, and I worked at a local dairy. I taught a Sunday School class of 12 year-olds. I drove a 1997 Saturn SL2 (manual transmission - thankyouverymuch). I didn't EVER worry about diet or exercise, and I sported my own version of the "Rachel" and weighed 125 pounds.

 According to this photo, there was a time when 

I wasn't covered in moles

Here are some of the things 18YOM might have been shocked to learn about 36YOM.

1. I live in a middle-class home with forest green carpet in the city I grew up in.

18YOM was too good for this city. She intended to move away to somewhere classier because she, of course, was going to be wealthy. She was going to have a really nice, really big house. Everything inside it was going to be clean and absolutely stellar! She never planned on having anything outdated in her home.

2. My kids always wear mis-matched clothes, they have dirty faces, and their hair is rarely done.

18YOM used to look at children at the store and think, "My children will never..." 18YOM would be appalled that my children's summer wardrobes consist primarily of their winter clothes modified with scissors. She would be disgraced at my daughters' unruly hair and my son's Hawaiian shirts and gym shorts wardrobe.  

3. My furniture has been beaten to smithereens.

There are two points to make about 18YOM on this one. First of all, she had no idea how hard it is to keep furniture nice. She never would have expected the amount of rules, work, and discipline that would have to go into maintaining those dang off-white microfiber couches she would purchase pre-kid. Secondly, she thought her kids would be super obedient and super mellow and that it would be super easy to get them to be that way. Her kids would never be the type to cause damage to furniture.

Ha!

4. I'm not stick thin.

This is the thing that I think would have scared 18YOM the most. I think if she'd seen what would become of her body, she would have ran for the hills. 18YOM never thought that she'd have to worry about weight. She always thought she'd look exactly the same as she did at 18. If she would have known what would happen to her arms, her belly, and her face, she never would have been able to cope.

Yes, 18YOM would have had a really hard time looking 18 years into the future. She probably would have been so startled by what she saw that she wouldn't have noticed that living in a modest house allowed her to stay out of debt. Or that every time she had the money to replace the forest green carpet, she'd use it to take her family on vacation instead. She wouldn't have seen the joy her children experience or the independence they develop when they dress themselves. She wouldn't have known how well-used each piece of furniture truly was - how many meals were shared at the scratched and dented table, or how many family movies were watched on the dirty, stained sectional. And most of all, she wouldn't have seen the beauty of carrying four babies or her own willingness to sacrifice some of the finer traits of her body in order to bring them into the world. 

I guess it's a good thing 18YOM didn't get that 18-year glimpse into the future. Poor thing would've been traumatized!