I’d love to tell you that I had the energy to clean today. That, however, would be a lie. Instead, I organized a few things upstairs and brought a busting-at-the-seams notebook downstairs - Purely with the intention of going through it to figure out what I’d like to keep, and what to throw out.

It was a large, blue, and battered (well, still is I suppose)…and it was from my Senior year in Highschool. An accumulation of some of the papers I kept from that year. AP English. AP Art. AP Biology. Most everything was from English class. But, stuck deep down in one of the folders was a purple piece of paper, folded in half. It read: “Welcome to the Real World.” It was from a life skills program from the 4-H program - aka Reality Store. This tiny paper only brought back a couple of memories for me. One, I won the “best kiss” contest and thus won play money for my Reality Store Purchases (and, for the “real world,” I won chocolates and some Mary Kay lipgloss). Two, I remember doing exceptionally well in the reality store, and telling them that they didn’t truly cover their bases - For, if I only had such little cash, I would not pay for my kid a haircut. I’d do it myself. And, I would not take them to GAP…we’d hit up the consignment stores.

That’s it. Those were my two memories. Intrigued, I opened the folded purple paper, and began to read:

Let’s pretend you are 25 years old. You are the sole support for your household. Please answer the following questions prior to entering the Reality Store:

1. What level of education do you plan to complete? PhD

2. What is your occupations? Psychologist.

3. How many children would you have? 1

List gender and ages: girl, 2 years

4. Would you rent or own a home? Own

Describe your home: big

5. What kind of car would you have? Mustang (blue)

6. What would you do for entertainment? work/sports/be with my family

7. Where would you go on vacation? depends

8 . How much money would you like to be able to save each month? $1,000

9. When you purchase groceries, would you buy mostly low-cost, moderately -priced, or high priced items? Circle one. Whichever suits my needs. (I didn’t circle any)

Whoa.

At 22 years of age, I can most certainly tell you that I will not have a PhD in 2.5 years. No way. I do, however have one daughter…and she will be almost 3 by the time I’m 25. I will probably never buy that blue (2001) Mustang. Some priorities just change when you get older wiser.

But, as I read back over the words “Let’s pretend you are 25 years old. You are the sole support for your household…”, I am haunted. At 17, did I know something about myself - that now, I can’t even see? I AM wanting to go back to college - for psychology. Not necessarily for my PhD - but, at this stage in my life, I feel I should be capable of taking care of myself (and L), no matter what life shall throw my way. I wish I could go back to the naive manner in which I looked at certain things in my life, but I can’t. And, for that…I am a little bit sad…but mostly smarter. In some ways, I hope that Psychology degree that I hope to earn within a couple of years will sit on a shelf to collect dust, never NEEDING to be used. But, in some ways…I can’t honestly say that’s NOT being naive.

So, back to the Reality Store. Just for giggles, I’ll tell you what I got. We drew our “salary/circumstances/job” out of a hat. Mine was (at 25): Married, Delivery/Route Driver (HS degree), 8 year old girl and a 6 year old boy. Salary: 18, 163/yr (Per month: 1,513). Additional income: $200.

I came out of the Reality Store with some extra money. Even though they made me hit up the mall for the kids’ clothes. AND a salon for kid haircuts. Which was stupid.

Welcome back!