I must have spent a lot of time on this topic as a child and a teenager. I had more answer to it than there are hairs on my head!
I honestly don’t remember what I chose as a small child, except maybe a dancer. I loved dancing, and I still do. I can look at things realistically enough now to know that I wouldn’t ever make it dancing professionally, at this point. I think artist must have come and gone then, as it was a time when I was learning a lot from whatever art teacher I had at the time. Oddly enough, I can remember the lessons, but not the teacher.
As a teenager, I ran through many possibilities. Interior designer or decorator sounded good. I love playing with colors, after all, and I babysat for a woman who was an interior designer. She had lots of advice for me. Landscape architect then sounded good; I would still get to play with colors, but I would also get to play with plants. My brother’s girlfriend’s dad was interested in bonsai and helped that interest flower. My parents also let me design and plant a space in their garden which had been bare up to then. That was a fun project and many of the plants were still flourishing when they moved from that house.
Writing was a very strong contender, even though I found English class challenging. I found reading “classic novels” to often be tedious. I found writing papers hard, as I was often editing myself right up to the moment of turning them in. I always scored well on papers, though, and received compliments from my teachers. I took a creative writing class and did well there. I also took a class, I can’t even remember what it was now, but we read a lot of poetry and short fiction, and did a ton of writing of our own. That class was probably the most difficult. Throughout these classes, I had encouraging teachers who were willing to let things slide when I didn’t get things turned in on time, simply because I kept coming to them for help. They knew I was working on the papers, that I was putting a ton of effort into them, and so they helped me and let me turn things in a week late at times. Amazing how just asking the teacher for help when things were behind could get some leeway.
I also had a mentor throughout my teen years. She was one of my rifle coaches, but I also considered her a good friend. She was the mom of two of the boys on my rifle team. (Yes, shooting was also considered as a career…or at least as a way to get scholarships at college! Somehow, I didn’t think I’d do well in the military, though.) She took the time to read through the novel I started back then…and any other poetry or prose I’d written that I wanted comments on. She also encouraged my love of reading, introducing me to many new science fiction writers. She had a whole library of sci fi in her basement and would let me browse to my heart’s content. She always had interesting things to say about what I’d written, and about life in general.
As I entered college, I was still unsure what I wanted to do. I loved Spanish, and although the school I’d chosen was only just developing a Spanish minor, I took every class I could get into. I often had two or three Spanish classes a semester, as well as being a Spanish tutor and an assistant to the Spanish professor. Thoughts of becoming an interpreter ran through my head, but I was slow to gain fluency and found that frustrating.
I turned to the idea of teaching. In high school, I’d loved babysitting and working in the Child Development preschool. I loved being around kids in the baby to five years age group. I still do, truth be told. So, I changed my major to Education, with an early childhood emphasis and a minor in Spanish. I really did enjoy my education classes, especially the ones I took in the summer semester. They were loads more interesting than all of the general requirements classes I’d completed up to then. It seemed like I was on the right track.
Except that I was so unhappy at school. About that time, I took it in my head to go to Spain for some much needed immersion. I wasn’t sure how to go about it, except maybe transferring to a college there or getting into some kind of work program. Either way, I really didn’t have the money to go. So, then I thought I’d become a Flight Attendant. It’d be a great way to travel the world, right? Yeah, my parents didn’t much like that idea either.
I ended up leaving school, moving to Ohio, getting married, having babies….and now ten years later, and several career choices later, I’m still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.
Mary Kay Consultant, Nursing assistant and Nursing, Jewelrymaker, and any number of others have gone out the window. I’m sure my family is tired of hearing about my latest ambitions. At least writing is not a new ambition. It’s an old one, returned to roost. Maybe this time it will stick. Someday, I’ll be grown up and doing something I love.
