When I was in kindergarten, I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I answered a ballerina, a policewoman, and a singer. (I only know this because my parents kept it and gave it to me.) When I was in 5th grade, I decided I wanted to become an archaeologist or Egyptologist. In 8th grade, my passion was animals, so I decided I wanted to be a veterinarian in a zoo. In high school, my head went back into the clouds that it had visited in kindergarten and I again wanted to be a singer.
I also fell in love in high school right when I was starting to make decisions regarding colleges, what I wanted to pursue, where I wanted to live, etc. So, I decided to go to a liberal arts college about 2 hours away from me where I would be in a big city, but still be able to come home on the weekends to see my honey. (Ick, I can't believe I just called him that. That was way too girly for me.) It was a great choice, my best friend also went there, so we roomed together for the first semester, I hung out at museums during my off time and took the train home every weekend. The only problem was that all of the vocal classes took place on the weekends. Oh no, that wasn't going to do. I ended up taking classes in drawing, English, poetry, advertising, art history, and my favorite, "biology of human sexuality." After two semesters, I realized that I had no idea what direction I wanted to take in pursuit of a major. I didn't want to spend my parents' money in order to figure it out either, so I decided to leave after my second semester.
Jump ahead 6 or 7 years and I'm married to that aforementioned "honey" and have a baby. After having said offspring, I do a little soul searching - wanting to be the best role model I could possibly be for him by being a happy, well-adjusted grown up. One thing I realized was that I knew what I wanted to be. I finally had it figured out! I wanted to be one of the fortunate few who got to design exhibits for museums. I wanted to put my love of learning together with my little bit of creativity and desire to be in museums, wrap them all together, and have my dream job!
Yes! Wait...no!
I do not live close enough to a city to commute daily, and I'm not going to uproot the family in order to get closer. I don't have any money for school - Yes, I know there's financial aid, but I'd also want to cut back on my hours at work in order to be able to focus on school work. And to top it all off...there's not a big job market in the museum exhibit design field. I do not want to go through 4-8 years of schooling to get a dream job that isn't feasible.
Do I regret any of the decisions I've made? Oh, hell no! I do think that everyone wonders from time to time where they would be if they had turned left instead of right or said yes instead of no. I can't imagine my life without my husband or my son and am perfectly content with small town life. I'm not very content with my job, but I'm working on that. If / when I do find another job, I know it won't be my dream job, but how would we have a functioning society if most of the kindergartners in the world grew up to be ballerinas, singers or princesses?
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