What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s a question commonly asked when growing up. One of my earliest response to this question was “ a ballerina, or a dog.” I’m sorry to say that neither of those have worked out too well. In high school there’s a lot of pressure around this question. Which college are you going to? Which career will you pursue? Will you make a lot of money? Do you love it enough to spend your money on it and time on it? Will you still enjoy it twenty years from now?
When I was in high school it seemed like everyone had everything figured out but me. One of my friends was going to be an actress, one a movie director, another a baker, and another an artist. The pressure increases as you get closer to graduating and your older friends are going off to college, chasing their dreams, and seemingly starting their lives.
In desperation to follow my friends and feeling pressured to have a dream of my own, I decided on becoming a massage therapist. They make good money, they can work at resorts and cruise ships, and they make people feel better. It didn’t sound too bad to me. Also in the back of my mind I reasoned that I could use it to pay off any loans I would have and then later put myself through school if I ever decided on something different. It sounded nice and I tried to be enthusiastic about it. I called schools and looked into different programs. This is it I thought.
One day though, I met a friend’s family friend and I was introduced as an aspiring massage therapist. We talked for nearly two hours. He told me a lot about being a massage therapist. He told me that most people don’t last longer than three to five years if they make it out of the massage school. He told me it became tiring physically and emotionally. He told me about how much his hands would hurt at the end of the day. That conversation made me think.
When I was about eight or nine, I fell off my bike and hurt my wrist. It was really embarrassing. A whole party of people witnessed it. I screamed and cried and it took my little sister a while to convince my parents that I was actually hurt before they came and got me. They bandaged my wrist and told me it was probably just a sprained.
My wrist bothered me for years and I complained a long while before my parents finally took me to a chiropractor. According to him I had knocked a few bones out of place and had cracked something. My wrist hadn’t healed right and he told me that I would probably have arthritis at a young age. So now when the weather is bad my wrist hurts and when it gets too cold I can hardly get my right hand to function at all. Even doing simple things will bother my hand and can be a little a frustrating.
Weighing all this along with the difficulties getting to a school from where I lived, and getting money to do so, forced me to realize that I couldn’t become a massage therapist. I should be crushed right? My dreams had been shattered. While I was sad and disappointed, I wasn’t heartbroken. I had just picked something and it hadn’t worked out. I could just find a new “dream.”
My teachers had always pressured me into going to a college and that’s what all my friends were doing or working toward. I tossed around the idea of becoming a counselor or a shrink, but I couldn’t handle talking about people’s problems all day. I considered being a teacher or working in childcare, and while I love children, I don’t think I could handle a large group of them on a daily basis. I also considered many other options, none that really grabbed me. So I was stumped. I couldn’t answer the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I didn’t have a dream. I didn’t have anything to go to college for. Which is what society and my teachers told me I should do. If I couldn’t do that what was I good for? What will happen to my life? Where was my worth?
The question continued to haunt me after I graduated high school. For my first year after high school I babysat, I worked at a friend’s coffee shop, and I helped out as a teacher’s assistant at a homeschool group once a week. The second year I babysat and continued to help out with the homeschool group. Whenever people would ask me the dreaded question and I would make up some kind of passable answer to appease them.
This year I have absolutely nothing planned. No volunteering, no job, nothing. It’s freaking me out. Here I am, 20 years old, currently living with my parents, no job, no dreams, and no plans. All this summer I’ve been thinking and worrying.
Then it occurred to me. Do I have to answer the question that way? Does what I want to be when I grow up have to be answered by an occupation? So this year I’ve decided. I’m just going to enjoy myself and not worry about it. I’m not going to worry about what I want to do with my life. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out, but right now I’m just going to live.
I think that it is possible that’s what God wants me to do. I never give myself a break. I try my best to be what I think I should be, instead of what I am. These past few years I’ve had less and less on my plate. The whole time I think God’s been telling me “RELAX!” Which I’ve been ignoring the best I can. “You don’t understand God! I’m an adult! I need to be responsible and have plans. I need to know where my life is going. I need to have a dream.” I’ve been trying to look further up the path instead of smelling the flowers. Which has not been leaving me any more satisfied. I feel that if I let myself enjoy now and not worry about tomorrow that I will fail somehow, or miss something, and that people will judge me. “Why aren’t you going to college? Why don’t you have a job? Why don’t you know what you want?” I just don’t have any big, future dreams like that. My dreams are more immediate, and I’m beginning to let myself believe that’s okay.
So for now, I dream that one day I will paint something that I will absolutely love, that one day I will learn how to knit a hood, learn how to cook, that I will see more kids smile, make more friends, and spend lot’s of time with my family. And when I grow up...
When I grow up I want to be happy
When I grow up I want to be kind
When I grow up I want to be creative and inspire others
And when I grow up I want to love and be loved.
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