You know, when you are a little kid, in school perhaps, you were asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
The answer was usually, an astronaut, a president, a rock-star, a movie star etc.
When you are in middle school or high school suddenly you have more to think about what you want to be when you grow up.
You go to career day and speak to counselors, teachers, fire police-men etc and when you in your freshman year making a roadmap for the next four years and then some.
You counselor asks, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Without much thought, I said teacher and doctor.
I pretend to be those two things when I was a kid, forcing my kid brother and cousins to be my students, writing on a mirror in my home and using my old school work to teach my “students” something new and correct papers and let them out for recess. Or that when we played war, I was the doctor and I would create “magic” medicine that would cure them of any wounds.
Then, my sophomore and junior came around. All of a sudden I was thinking about college, something that had never cross my mind before. I was thinking about the classes I needed to get into a good school, my grades, being involved in clubs, getting letters of recommendations from teachers, dragging my parents out of town to pass exams I needed to enter these schools.
Applying for colleges my senior year without a single clue of what I was doing.
You see, I am a first-generation college student. College was the very first time that I had worked really hard for something.
Something that I didn’t even think it was possible to do for me.
Those around me, adults who never went to college who also had would say to me, “But what will you do without your mom around?”
Still, I persisted. I knew that I wanted to get out of this town, that I had outgrown and moved on to bigger and better things.
Then, as I started receiving acceptance and rejection letters it started to become too real.
I started packing my things and looking up dorm checklist and shopping for what I needed.
I was meeting with counselors to choose my major. I thought, okay, two things I wanted to be when I was younger, doctor and teacher. I’ve never been one to love medicine, to cure someone.
All of a sudden doctor was out of my peripheral.
Then there was teaching. I loved History It had been my favorite subject in school. I love all my teachers they had been amazing. I truly felt like I valued education and that I was an advocate for quality education. (Which I still am!)
So I decided I would study history and become a teacher. I replied to a school accepting their admission. and slowly and gradually I was in a college and studying history. I loved it, I loved the subject, loved the school, what my day was.
After the fourth year, though I no longer had the same interests, I did for those classes. I begin to lose motivation. I pushed myself through it all and graduated in the Spring of 2017.
I was elated with joy, that after 5 years of hard work and so much dedication I was able to graduate school.
Fast forward to a couple months. I was in search of a job ended up going through two jobs that I didn’t like at all. I was unhappy, I didn’t wake up with the same motivation that I was used to. I felt like I was just walking through the motions.
I finally found a job that I liked working with students, actually feeling like I was making a difference in someone’s life.
Today, I can tell you that I am not ashamed of my life and the way it has turned out. And even though I don’t have plans anytime soon to go back to school for my masters and In all honesty, I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.
It’s hard to say this is what I’m going to do and then you have this linear life, where you go to school, get a degree, work, have a family and that being the end of it all.
In college, I learned to be independent. I learned that If I want something I might just fail, but I can choose to make that a learning experience and get back up. Sure it’s not easy, but what is not easy is always worth it.
I learned that although those around me may not agree with my decisions. They are mine. As long as I am honest with myself and what I want, no one has to agree with my decisions.
I used to think that having that linear life would make me happy (going to school, getting married, starting a career, buying a home and having children etc you get the point) and everyone has their own definition of happy. I’ve slowly come to realize that life is about so much more than all of that and it’s exciting not having everything figured out because even things that I could never imagine would happen.
I also learned that its okay to not have everything figured out. Just because you are a certain age it does not mean that you have things figured out.
Honestly, In terms of my career, I have no plans, it’s an open road that I am discovering. I have absolutely no clue what I want to do, who I want to be.
The life that I envision for myself as a five-year-old, thirteen years old, twenty-one year old Is so different from what I envisioned.
I’ve actually written this post in so many different formats before for my blog and never hit plush. Finally, it feels like I’ve lifted a load off my chest realizing that life isn’t perfect. MY life isn’t perfect. That all of a sudden I don’t have my life figured out and that its okay.
