What’d you wanna be when You grew up?

What’d you wanna be when YOU grew up?

I’m participating for the first time in Girl Talk Thursday – A new topic is chosen each week and bloggers write about it in their own way.  A great concept!

This week I thought was a fun post – What’d you wanna be when YOU grew up?

I wanted to be a lawyer.  In fact, for as long as I can remember as a kid of even 10 or 11, I wanted to be a lawyer.  One of my favourite shows was Matlock. I’m serious. Stop laughing at me. 

In grade 9, during career class (or whatever joke that class was) we were asked to write what we wanted for a career (I wrote lawyer of course) and what we didn’t think we wanted to be (I wrote accountant – I married one instead 😉  The exercise was meant to be a guide through our high school career, to pick the right courses (ha!) etc.  But I was determined.

Despite the fact that I knew it would take years of schooling and long hours in the beginning, I didn’t mind.  I took a week long special course in grade 8 in Ottawa about the criminal justice system.  I was enthralled. 

I went to university for Criminology and things were moving well.  But my ambitions to become a lawyer started to disappear. I wasn’t sure that I was prepared to deal with criminal cases and things like the prison system.  And I realized that while I liked to learn, I wasn’t thrilled with a school setting. 

I switched majors to History with the anticipation of teaching.  But then started to realize that it was the policy side of education that I liked, not the actual classroom management.

Through a co-op program at the University, I discovered government work and non-profit work.  I loved working for a charity – I had always volunteered and did fundraising for my community or school since I was a kid.  And the government job was really interesting at the time (education policy!) and when they offered me something full time upon graduating, I took it. (Meanwhile, I was working for a bank to pay for my school about 30 hours a week so I was exposed to a lot of different work worlds!)

But I never felt completely at ease in the government. It was a great job, but wasnt’ for me.  So I left to work for non-profits.  I really liked feeling like I was making a difference or helping a group out.  However, I was growing more.  Got married and my heart started to turn more to family and my time with my future family. 

This once wanna be lawyer was shocked when I realized that I wanted to be a Stay at home mom.  My husband was on board and that was that.  I quit my job when I had my son. 

All those years in my teens and twenties spent worrying and thinking about ‘what I wanted to be’ when I grew up.  Turns out, I wanted to be a mom.  

There’s more though.  i continue to volunteer and work with charities.  I have always toyed with the idea of working part time, or starting my own business but with the kids young all of the variables would have to fit – little to no work during the day so that limits some options since a lot of businesses close at 5 😉

The point?  It doesn’t matter what I wanted to be when I grew up – each year brings a new journey.

When I had my son, I was only reading blogs, not writing.  Since having my daughter, I have a blog, Twitter account and new opportunities and doors open up constantly. 

What’s next? I’m not sure, and that’s kind of fun.  I wish my teenage self would have known that the journey was part of the fun.