What do you want to be when you grow up?

The author in a simpler time. Possibly during the archaeology phase.

If memory serves, the journal each student kept in our kindergarten class to help us practice writing (assisted by the teacher in August, less so by April’s end) had multiple entries from a clearly career-minded five year old Emily. She wanted to be a nurse, a teacher, a zookeeper (this entry complete with beautifully detailed giraffe drawing). In a couple of years she would learn the word “zoologist” and obsessively collect and organize Wildlife Fact File cards in two binders. I may have initially wanted it for the free plush wolf that came with the new subscription, but I spent hours poring over those cards, including once when I had a stomach flu (the card for the Trumpeter Swan was never the same after).

In middle school, I discovered archaeology, and did a weekend class program through the local university and extension office. I wanted to be Indiana Jones without the fighting Nazis, and discover evidence of ancient civilizations and put things in museums! Later I would worry that there was too much science involved in an archaeology career, and move on to something else. I was Not Good at math and science, so I stopped letting myself be interested in either.

In 10th grade we read Julius Caesar and Keats and Tennyson and Poe and I hauled a giant book of 19th century English poetry onto the bus and read it and got lost in the flowery language. I wanted to move to England and teach at Oxford, live in a flat and have tea every day (I did not like tea, but I would learn to like it in England of course).

In 12th grade I started singing more. I joined the school choir, sang at school functions, and auditioned for a community theater production of Beauty & the Beast and got a part in the chorus. I wanted to move to New York and be on Broadway, it didn’t matter that I didn’t know how to dance because there were plenty of shows that didn’t have big dance numbers and anyway I could figure it out.

My ability to keep my head above water academically was lost when I started college, and as a result of my failure to keep up I failed some of my music classes. I was done with the dream of Broadway, and I told myself that I could always just do it for fun. At this point I should have again sought treatment for the ADHD I was diagnosed with four years earlier. Instead I told myself that it was an excuse and that I could overcome it if I just worked harder.

I considered journalism, TV production, archaeology again, liberal arts, psychology. I thought about saving some of the music credits I did accrue to minor in music.

I switched my major to English. I didn’t know what else to do, it was the only thing I thought I was good at so it seemed like a no-brainer. My English teacher father and librarian mother thought that’s what I would have done from the beginning, since it was always my area.

I scoffed at the notion of choosing a major with a career in mind. I thought I was better than most because I majored in something I loved and trusted I would find a career after. I was better because I didn’t care about searching for a career because it would make me wealthy.

I can talk about Horatian satire and Early Modern English. I can write a paper about A Streetcar Named Desire and turn it in late via email rather than face my teacher in class with nothing. I have soft skills and a pleasant demeanor that make people like me to make up for feeling like I have nothing to offer intellectually. I still sort of want to be an archaeologist. And an interior designer. And a TV writer. And a mother. And a baker. And a novelist. And someone who keeps a clean house, eats fruit and vegetables, and exercises regularly.

Special thanks to all of my teachers who knew I was smart and that I could do better. Your confidence in me did wonders for my oft wavering self-esteem, even if I did feel like I was disappointing you at every turn. I did, and still do love learning. I have a ravenous mind that doesn’t always know what to do with the research rabbit holes I find myself in (other than finding myself at parties with fun facts about Rasputin or the oldest cat on record).

We ask little kids what they want to be when they grow up because the answers are always hilarious (A truck! A cat! An ice cream maker!). And sometimes they get to college

I wish the answer to what I want to be when I grow up was more clear cut and defined. I wish I could let myself be less afraid of success. I wish I could write more often on this frickin’ blog. I wish! More than anything, more than the moon…