- If the world hasn’t ended already, I wonder what it will be like. On the good chance that we’re still driving gas-guzzling cars, we can take solace in the fact that the iPhone’s new technology will have brought us one or two steps closer to the first human-machine marriage. I wonder if they’ll make any more “Mission: Impossible” movies. These are deep questions, friends, and ones that I’m just beginning to take seriously…ish.
You see, 10 years ago I didn’t think about what would happen in 10 years. Ten years ago I was nine, practicing my cursive in Mrs. Hughes’ third grade classroom and salivating over lunchtime chicken nuggets whose content was delicious, if not a little questionable. I had a bad hair year then, with my wavy locks coming just to my chin, highlighting my chubby cheeks and all-around baby face. But I took it in stride as only a kid still in her single digits could. What did it matter if my two front teeth were crooked and I had that weird, unexplained possibly life-threatening rash around my mouth? I was more concerned with where the neighborhood basketball practice would take place. (We didn’t have a neighborhood court, so every family deemed it their responsibility to put up a net at the end of the driveway.)
But now society has made it our responsibility to consider our futures. I think some pretty big stuff is about to go down. I mean, look at what’s happened in the last 10 years: pajama jeans, the Shake Weight, “The Lion King” in 3D. This is some pretty mind-blowing stuff, people. I mean, with this kind of creative thinking, we’re one step away from jet packs.
In all seriousness, I did just run across this question over break. Back in my high school stomping grounds of Moorestown, N.J., I found myself seated at an ice cream shop with my friends eating Chinese out of a carton from the place down the street. It was light-hearted, jovial, blissful even! Until: “Do you think it will still be like this in 10 years?” It came from my left, and I tensed. “I hope so,” I choked out. How could I give a definitive answer? Apparently they had redone the inside of the Starbucks down the street with absolutely no warning. And if something as vital to our existence as the ‘Bucks can change, there’s no telling where I’ll end up. Me with my fleeting emotions and alternating states of being. One minute I’m all ready to do my homework, and as soon as I look at it I’m tired. Totally unstable.
But I do hope it’s kind of the same in 10 years. I hope my friends and I can still walk down Market Street in Philadelphia and be made slightly uncomfortable by the homeless. That we still know the price of the lunch special at the Chinese restaurant on Main Street. And that we can all see the next few “Mission: Impossible” movies together.
Liz Boccolini is a freshman in the College of Communication and a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached atlizboc@bu.edu.
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