Wednesday, March 9, 2011

when i grow up

i remember one day when i was in grade 2, i figured out how old i would be in the year 2000. holy smokes, i'd be 23 years old! that was so old to 8 year old me. i'd be a grown up lady! i'd have a job and dress fancy, and probably be married with kids. wow.... a grown up.... but that was very far away. i didn't have to worry about being an old 23 year grown up lady for a long time!

even when i was a bit older, my concept of age was all out of whack. in high school i definitely remember thinking that 26 was old. i'd for sure have a job, dress fancy and probably be married with a kid by then. i mean come on, TWENTY SIX! and this trend pretty much continues to this day. basically i don't see myself as a grown up yet, but the age a little further along always is. that sneaky invisible grown-up line keeps shifting with every birthday!

but what did i see for myself as a grown up? aside from some fancy business clothes that i assumed all adults wore. what did i want? for the longest time i wanted to be an actress. and i thought i'd be fantastic at it. i loved my acting classes and i totally rocked at playing make believe. plus, if i became rich and famous, i would never let it go to my head. i gave great interviews - witty, charming, yet humble. i practiced talk show appearances a lot, along with the occasional award acceptance speech, which always drew a standing ovation from my imaginary audience.

in high school i thought i should come up with a more practical career path, so i toyed with psychology. yes, that wasn't so bad. patient, caring, understanding dr amanda would listen to your woes and help you on to brighter days. but that idea only lasted a few months or so. then i stopped thinking about a career and went to get my arts degree instead. since then i've thought about teaching, journalism, film editing, publishing, a photographer for national geographic, and probably a few other things along the way. but the real passion - the one constant for as long as i can remember - was the desire to travel. jobs and babies belonged on some distant horizon, and i had lots i wanted to do and see before reaching it.

i can say one thing for sure: at no time did i daydream about working in a call centre and talking about employment insurance or pensions all day.

so where am i going with all this? obviously i'm not planning on quitting my job to break into show business. but that grown-up horizon isn't as many years away as it used to be; the gap keeps narrowing. i'm restless. i'm looking at the world map on the wall next to me and thinking that maybe i'm not done exploring.

when i grow up i want to have seen the world. i want to have passports full of stamps, albums full of photographs, shelves full of silly souvenirs, and a head full of stories to share. yep... that's what i want when i grow up. the world.

3 comments:

Deborah said...

Wonderful :o) I could identify with and loved reading this ... and when you grow up, I really do wish you THE WORLD! smiles

Sultan said...

You are George Bailey from "It's a Wonderful Life!"

Chelle said...

I want that too. but I haven't been anywhere awesome yet.

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