Where Life Will Lead

As kids, we're asked all the time what we want to be when we grow up. At various points in my childhood, I wanted to be a dancer, a country singer and briefly, a doctor before I realized that blood freaks me out. In high school, I wanted nothing more than to move to New York and become a magazine editor.

To this day, my favorite recital picture. 1994.

My brief stint with singing. And fake hair. 2002.

(I was a member of a group that would go sing at nursing homes. And apparently, at the Fourth of July.)

I was such a goober. Interviewing the band Blue October for my high school magazine was the highlight of the year. 2004, I think.

We're asked so often as kids what we want.  And then we spend our entire high school and college careers working toward the dreams that we've developed over the first 18 years of life, with the expectation that the thing(s) you choose to do in school will be what you'll spend the rest of your life doing.

I kind of expected that at 26, I'd know what the hell I want to do with my life. And I don't.

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Matt says this is his last year of grad school. If all goes as planned, he intends to walk across that stage in May, get his Ph.D., and get the heck out of dodge. He's been talking a lot lately about the future. Will he have to get a post-doc? Will he be qualified for tenure-track professorship positions? Where will we go to pursue these dreams?

And the one that's been nagging me: what about me?

It's selfish. I know. But I graduated college and moved straight to College Station to be with Matt, knowing it wasn't the right market for my chosen career path. At 21, I knew what I wanted, career-wise, and I made a choice not to pursue it. (And let's be honest. I can complain all day long about it, but I know if I could do it all again, I wouldn't change a thing.)

I always expected that, despite my choices thus far, at some point I'd finally get the chance to get my "real" career off the ground. But now I'm not even sure what that career should look like.

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The other night, Matt and I were talking about a job he wanted to apply for, somewhere far away from our families and in a smaller town than where we are now, and I found myself in tears. So I did the only reasonable thing I could think of, and called my friend Alyson, who also chose to follow her husband and put her career prospects second.

She reminded me that nothing is permanent. Just because you're doing something that is not your dream job today doesn't mean you won't get the chance later. Maybe you won't even want the same things later. Just because you're not in the big city you dreamed of doesn't mean there are no options for you. And just because you move somewhere, doesn't mean you're stuck there forever if you hate it.

She admitted she doesn't know what she wants out of life either. And it made me feel better to know that I'm not the only one.

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When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? What did you end up doing? And are you happy?