8 Minute Memoir, Day 42: When I Grow Up

Devil's Lake; August 2006

When I grow up, I want to be a doctor; I watch ER with rapt fascination and find myself calling surgeries into imagination, putting my Barbie dolls into emergency situations.  I want to be an equestrian, and I tie a sweatshirt around the seat of my bike as if it's a saddle and I ride my bike up and down the street in front of my house, in circles around the front yard.  I want to be an ice skater--desperately.  I take literally one round of lessons, the funny thing is that I thought I could overcome the whole, lack of grace thing... not so much.  Obsessed with the movie Ice Castles and the Olympics and these books about this skating club called Silver Blades (holy cow, my childhood)...

I go to high school and I want to be a nurse, an editor, a journalist, a teacher, an artist (I take painting classes and I do an artist study of Edward Hopper... I paint a chair, one I hope is still at my parents' house because someday, I'll be displaying it in my own home).  I actually go to an art school portfolio day at the Rockford Art Museum with fellow art students, where you show your art to various schools and needless to say... it is clear that maybe art school wasn't my forte.  I would to go to school for one of my other passions, instead.

I go to college, I declare myself an English major and decide that I'm going to be a teacher.  When I grow up, I want to be a teacher.  I even helped teach a class, UNIV 101, that basic entry level, Welcome to College, here's how to not fuck up kind of class.  And, to my disappointment... I didn't love the experience of "teaching," as much teaching as I was able to in that kind of classroom setting, anyway.  I much preferred moderating smaller groups, that kind of leadership.  So I end up dropping the education part of the degree, and pick up a journalism minor.  Then I take a few journalism classes, and I decide I don't really want to do that, either.

But I have, somehow, picked up enough credits in classes relating to Southeast Asian Studies that I can add that to my degree, a minor in the very same.  I become semi-fluent in Thai (a skill I should really pick up again... I bet it would be like riding a bike) and I take politics and art history classes and I really enjoy to this unexpected twist in my education...  I actually almost go to Thailand to become a teacher, but...  my heart keeps me home, and I know it's the right decision.  I don't regret it, though I would still love to go and visit someday!

And so, I get a degree in English, a minor in Southeast Asian Studies; the economy is awful when I graduate, like it was awful when my husband-then-fiance graduated, and eventually there is a long and winding road that, happily, fortuitously, leads me to what has been my dream career.  I never would have guessed.  When I grow up, I want to be an expert in food and drink, a runner, a wife, a Chicagoan.  Who knew I'd be so lucky as to become all of those things.  My heart, it could burst!