I Don’t Wanna Grow Up

Just want to mention very quickly that  I’m on the OKC moms blog talking about my 20’s (which end on Thursday – ah!) as part of their ‘Love Your Decade’ series – seems fitting with the theme of today’s post here, no? And Mom Babble is featuring my Toddler’s List of Grievances post today. 

When I saw the prompt, “Tell us what you wanted to be ‘When I Grow Up'” my immediate next thought was of Jeffery the Giraffe and, “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid…”

So. That’s where I stand on the whole grown-up thing. #Denial

But in the interest of playing along and sharing with the group as part of Andrea’s Show & Tell Tuesdays, I should first say that nowhere on my radar ever was the job I currently do now.

(Important to note here that I love my job now. I love the challenges and that it’s different every day and I love the people I work with. Just – this wasn’t something I wrote a report on in the third grade or anything.)

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a teacher.  My mom was a teacher, my aunt was a teacher, I loved school.  It seemed like the most natural thing in the world.  I specifically remember noting that my third grade teacher put tissue paper over the erasers in her room because that cleaned the chalk boards better.  Please appreciate the level of my nerdiness as I was like, “Mental note, do that when you’re a teacher. Clean chalk boards are important.”

And now I’m pretty sure that chalkboards are obsolete. Bless my heart. I didn’t consider that technology would happen and would literally erase my grand plans. (See what I did there?)

Alas, teaching fell aside as I entered high school and realized I loved to write.  Give me a multiple choice test and I will break out in hives.  Give me an essay test and I will be happy to TELL YOU WHAT I KNOW.

(Don’t even get me started on true/false tests.  Those are the root of all evil.)

So the writing love carried through to college where I declared myself a business major (common sense FTW) for exactly one semester and then realized that math would be a part of that degree and no thank you. 

Off to the journalism school I went.  I loved my classes. Loved.  Fantastic professors, project (writing) based grading.  It. Was. So. Fab.

Until I neared graduation and realized that my best option would be being a traffic reporter in Nowheresville, South Dakota barely making minimum wage.  Again, no thank you. 

(Listen. If you are from South Dakota and you are reading this then I’m sure your state is very wonderful.  But I start to complain about the cold at around 55 degrees and, just, know thyself. I am not meant to live north of the Mason-Dixon line.)

So I parlayed my journalism degree into a job at an advertising agency in Dallas where I worked on print media for a major pizza chain.

(You’re welcome for the junk mail! I DARE you to find a typo on a coupon I proofed.)

I worked with some of the very best people there but the hours were cuckoo crazy and I just burned out. Right around that time I was offered a new job and, well, I’m still at that job today – 5 years later.  So clearly something’s working and I am loving what I do every day.

The tricky thing about wanting to be a writer when you grow up is it’s really hard to write for a living and still afford fancy things like a roof and shoes and ramen noodles. But then, if you don’t write – if you just let that part of you lay dormant for, oh, 7 years – you always have this nagging thing in the back of your head asking you why you aren’t putting to paper some of your thoughts.

Because when you’re a writer – when this is your nature – this is how you best communicate.  The words flow.  Words on paper (or screen) are easy.  Words in person are trickier.  But here they are a natural next progression of thought.

So in my own way, I now feel like I’m fulfilling that dream of being a writer.  Because I’m writing here.  And on Scary Mommy. And on the OKC Moms Blog.

But the beauty of it is that I’m doing this for fun. It’s a creative outlet. It’s a hobby. It is absolutely pressure-free and I am so thankful that this is not my job because I fear that would take some of the fun out of it.

That said if anyone would like to start paying me the big bucks to sit at home in my pajamas while I blog then please do contact me.  

I’ll just be sitting here waiting for the floods of virtual job offers to start pouring in.

Posted by Kelly & filed under Motherhood. This post has 7 comments.