When I Grow Up

Once upon a time there was a little girl.  As she grew up she realized she wasn't the pretty one, that was her younger sister.  She wasn't the smart one.  That was her other younger sister.  She was just... her.

When she was almost grown she wanted to be a teacher.  But when she went to college she wasn't very good at it.  She goofed off.  She skipped classes.  She dropped out.  She went home to face her disappointed parents and her pretty and smart sisters.  She tried community college, but she wasn't much better at that than she had been at university.  She dropped out of that also. 

Time rolled along, she became a wife and had kids of her own.  She worked part time to help mothers breastfeed their babies.  But her job was forever trapped in the category of  "part time temporary" and there was no room for advancement.  She thought of becoming a board certified lactation consultant.  She took one online class and after barely passing realized she may not be very good at this either.  But she held onto the thought of getting that certification.  Until she realized that because she wasn't a nurse, or a nutritionist, or something else with a bunch of letters following her name - being a lactation consultant wouldn't mean much to potential employers. 

She thought perhaps she should become a nurse.  She tried to push past her fear of being the oldest person in the classes.  She tried to push past her fear of science classes that involved a lot of mathematical equations.  She tried to push past her fear of  classes period.  In the end, she realized that if she can't even clean up after her own kids being sick without dry heaving - she probably wasn't going to be very good at dealing with strangers vomit, blood, etc either.  Which would not make her a very good nurse.

Just for good measure, the universe decided to give her a good kick to the teeth by having her pretty and smart sisters go to school to become a teacher and a nurse.  And one of her friends sat for the lactation consultant boards.  Just as if to remind her that others could achieve the things she was too lazy, or too afraid to do herself.

She tried to think of something she would be good at.  Something that would interest her.  Something that would stimulate her mind.  Something that would make her feel like she had found her place in the world.  Something she could look forward to doing and enjoy each day.  The right thing had to be out there somewhere.  

She realized that at 40+ years old, she still had no idea what she wanted to be when she grew up.