This week's Monday Listicles, hosted by Stasha at The Good Life asks us to compare 10 ways we are the same or 10 ways we are different from when we were children. Oh, this is going to be fun!
10. I try to be friends with everyone. While it's something that sometimes gets me in trouble, it's something that hasn't changed in the last 38 years and that I doubt ever will. I like people to like me. And while I don't say whatever people want to hear anymore, I still do go out of my way to believe the best in people rather than assume the worst.
9. I love tacos. When I was a kid, tacos would be my request for birthday dinner every year. I first had them in school for lunches and I fell in love with them. Granted, I don't eat them all the time any more (older body, many changes) but I do still like to make them once in awhile.
8. I have a hard time controlling my temper. While I don't lose control of my temper as often now as I did when I was younger (I was horrid to my sister as a kid and sometimes, it amazes me that she survived me unscathed), I still have a really rough time when I'm tired or stressed keeping control on the anger bubbling under my surface.
7. I love to read. I started reading before Kindergarten, though my kindergarten teacher refused to believe it. And once I started, I couldn't stop. I volunteered at the library for a Girl Scout badge, then stayed volunteering because I loved to be surrounded by books. I always had a book going and two or three waiting in the wings. The only thing that has changed is the amount that I read. Believe it or not, I read more now than I did then. I used to only read one book at a time. Now I read three or four, often in different mediums (ebook/audio book/paperback/hardcover) and have To Be Read piles that would overshadow my townhome apartment. Reading is too important to me.
6. I'm a clutz. Grace has never been my middle name. If there's something to trip over, I'll trip over it. If there's something to bang into, I'll bang into it. Sometimes, I even manage to trip over nothing or cough on air. Yep. Not graceful at all.
5. I love to sing. Much like reading, singing has been an important part of my life my whole life. When I was young, my mom taught me to sing, "Baby Face". It was my first song. I was asked to sing "Here Comes the Bride" at my aunt and uncles wedding, but didn't because I was too shy (I was 5). I sang in chorus all throughout my school years, sang solos regularly in middle and high school and singing is still one of my favorite things to do to destress. One of these days, once this cold has gone away, I'll video me singing the song that I wrote for Teddy as a lullaby, one I still sing to both boys occasionally.
4. I'm a writer. When I was younger, it would be short stories and poems. Through college, I was pretty exclusively writing poems. They weren't always very good. Heck, some of them were abysmal. But I loved getting my thoughts on paper. Now I don't write short stories or poems as often, but I do love to write stories - either as part of online role-playing games that I participate in or true stories from the world around me that show up in my blog.
3. My room is a mess. When I was a kid, you would have been lucky to walk into my room and not kill yourself tripping over something. I thought that, magically, I'd know how to keep things clean as I got older. Yeah... as much as both my mom and my step-mom tried to teach it to me, it's a struggle for me to keep up with things. But I am making strides.
2. I get overly emotional about things. As a child, I would cry at the drop of a hat. If I watched a sad movie or read something sad in a book, I would start to sob. Someone would scold me for something, and the tears would start. And then I'd get mad at myself for it and cry harder. It's the same now. I've learned to have tissues near by.
1. I love to learn. I remember my mother getting a letter from my cousin when I was in first grade. He'd graduated and was, I believe, in the Navy at the time. He'd asked her if I still liked school and told her that it would change. Well, there were aspects of school that I didn't like, but it wasn't the learning. I loved to find out new things, to expand my brain. Anything that would push forward my personal boundaries of knowledge. And I still do. I don't have the money to take classes, but I read a lot. Even with the fiction I read, if something catches my attention, I'll do a little research to find out more about it. One should never stop loving to learn, even if what we love to learn changes.
