ever ever take for granted your life, family, or age. You never know when you can lose someone or something, and everything changes. You never know how lucky you are until something happens.

I did this once and the outcome wasn't a very pleasant one. It started off pretty good, but in the end... I'll just start from the beginning.

It was my senior year in high school and I wasn't too excited about college. I was a very bright student, but I just couldn't decide what school I wanted to go to. I was having trouble with choosing what I wanted to be: a lawyer, choreographer, or physical therapist. With those three careers were three different colleges. All three were equally good. The only thing I had to do was choose which one I wanted to go to.

I thought I'd prepared well for college, but at the time, nothing seemed to be going right with choosing my career. I had the motivation to become a lawyer and go to school for that long. I had the strength and creativity to be a choreographer. Also, the caring heart to help others and be a physical therapist. Everything was a mess, and nobody seemed to be of any help at that time.

One day a couple of my friends and I were discussing our futures. Their futures seemed well planned out unlike mine. They tried to cheer me up and say that any of those choices would be a great one but, I still couldn't figure out which one I wanted to do. I had to think quick in order to get into the best school for my chosen career which I hadn't even decided yet! I was getting pretty stressed out, not just with school, but Senior Prom was coming up. I had a dress, but not a date.

Ashlei, you of all people have nothing to worry about, said one of my friends Kym, you have about 10 different schools begging you to enroll. Plus, most people don't pick their careers until college anyway. Sure, but I'm not most people. I just wanna make sure that I'm prepared. I said.

As I was talking with them, the subject of junior high came up. All the fun times we had back then was all I could think about. I forgot all about the hardships of being a pre-teen and becoming a teenager. So then, as I was thinking, I secretly wished to myself that I could go back to 7th grade. I NEVER thought anything would happen. Just an innocent wish, right?
Wrong! That night, I was so pooped. I automatically went to sleep after jumping in bed. I was tired with thinking about school and the prom, so I had to go to sleep to forget about all those things. I don't know what happened that night, but when I woke up, I was totally different.
I got up refreshed, but I quickly remembered that today I had school. I hurried to my closet to pick out my outfit. When I looked in, all I saw were a bunch of size 1 jeans. I hadn't worn size 1 jeans since 7th grade. All my shirts were too small and I thought, have I really put on this much weight? Then I looked in my mirror and ...
AHHHH!, I screamed, what is going on!?!?
My mom came hurrying up the stairs.
Whats wrong?, She asked.
Do I look ANY different to you?, I said confusingly.
Sure, honey. You look older today! Youre becoming more grown up everyday!
I looked at her like she was crazy. Older? How could I look older when yesterday I was about 3 inches taller and 4 jean sizes wider? Then it hit me & the wish.
What could've happened? How could one tiny wish alter my whole life? I couldn't tell my mom what I did, she probably would just laugh and tell me it was only a dream. Or maybe this was a dream. I ran to the bathroom and splashed water on my face so that I'd wake up if this weren't real. No luck. I pinched myself and it hurt like crazy. One simple wish had actually worked: I was back in the 7th grade.

I got dressed and looked in the mirror. Hey, maybe this won't be so bad; I am wearing jeans that I couldn't even fit on one leg yesterday, I thought to myself. I walked down stairs to get breakfast. The aroma was addicting. I ate like I hadn't eaten in years. Then my mom rushed me out the door to catch the bus. When I got on, I saw Kym. She looked so young! I quickly sat down beside her. I wanted to ask her if she had made a wish too. Or maybe when I made my wish, it had changed everyone elses life also. I asked her if she had experienced any changes recently or overnight.
Heck yes!, she said, I got my period last night. I was so nervous but now I don't really care. I feel so grown up now! By the way whats up with you today? You looked like you had just thrown up, or was about to.
I guess my wish did change life for everyone.
Oh nothing much, I was just a little woozy

We continued talking about school and what had been going on. I was pretty clueless at first, but then I started remembering people and things that had happened. Then she started talking about her new life as a woman. I remember these good days; I thought when you didn't have to worry bout much of anything, especially your career. Just then the bus stopped. I got up because I thought we were at school, but then I realized it was someone elses bus stop. My jaw dropped and I looked at Kym. I quickly remembered who this was my jr. high crush, Jay. I was so surprised. I hadn't seen him very often at the high school before all this happened. Maybe because I was so absorbed with trying to find the right college. Kym started rambling about him and I was still in shock. How could I have forgotten about Jay? I needed a date for the prom, maybe I'd ask him & if I ever got out of this predicament and got to go to prom. Oh well, I thought. I'd have to worry about that when I find out whats going on.

When the bus stopped at school, I went to my homeroom class. I quickly remembered. I LOVED my homeroom teacher, Ms. Douglas. We were preparing for the IOWA test the next week. I didn't want to have to stick around for that. But, I loved being back in jr. high where everything was simple. No trigonometry, or biology, or any of those other difficult classes. The beginning of the day went by great, but after lunch I had my least favorite subject and teacher, Life Science with Mr. Williams. Not only did I hate science, but Mr. Williams hated me! He made that apparent the first day of school. I'm not quite sure why, but he loves to ignore my raised hand. After science, I had 7th hour PE. Since I was on the track team, we didnt have normal PE class, but conditioning for track. Track was my favorite sport besides basketball. My event was the 100M hurdles. Unfortunately, since I made that wish, it changed my junior high life also. I hadn't run in a while because the high school track season was over. I could barely jump the hurdles at practice! My coach told me if I wanted to compete at the meet in two days, I would have to work really hard. Oh great, now I have to stress about junior high life. I guess jr. high wasn't as great as I remembered it, especially when you haven't the slightest clue of what happened the day before you popped into it. The wish was beginning to make changes, for the worse. I had to find a way to get back to my old life.