At dinner the other night, the question came up “are you doing what you always wanted to do?”

Then I answered, “no, I wanted to be a nurse…”

I’ve thought about it and I want to change my answer…

Yes.I.Am. 

When I was 8, I wanted to be a Barbie.   When I was 13, I wanted to be a teacher.  When I was 18, I wanted to be a nurse.

At 20, I wanted to be a mommy.

At 21, I became an office manager/accounting/bossypants person. 

At 35, I became a single mommy.  I also became my true self.

At 41, I became her Mrs.

I realized that things in my life made me take different roads, to change who I was, so I could adapt to a situation.  I learned early in life to always be pleasing.  To always accommodate whatever someone else wanted.  It defined me for my teenage years and my early and middle adult years.  I don’t think I actually ever did anything FOR ME, until I hit about 40.  

Let me tell you, it’s been empowering and uplifting.  It’s been terrifying and at times aggravating.  I find it easy to slip back into accommodation mode to avoid conflict, to make others happy.  And to be honest, I feel yucky when I do it.  

I can look back at significant moments in my life when I reached a fork in the road and took the road that I felt I was supposed to take, rather than the road that my instincts told me to take.  Eventually, each time I took the road that I wasn’t 100% about, it blew up in my face.  Most times, spectacularly.  Only thing that I could do at that moment was pick myself up and dust off.   

As I’ve gotten older, I have learned to trust my instincts.  The last time I didn’t trust them, it cost me dearly and I still feel from the fact that instead of trusting my “gut”, I kept it to myself…and it blew up.  

I’ve spent a lot of time not talking, not blogging, not journaling, just being alone in my head, trying to figure shit out and heal. And re-learning what I’ve spent years practicing…to just listen to my instincts.

At 20, they told me I could handle being a mommy.  They were blessedly right. 

At 21, they told me to take an office job that has led me to a career filled with people and experiences I wouldn’t trade.

At 35, it led me to independence and a new found strength. It also led me to my coming out and eventually my wife.  

No, I’m not a Barbie, or a teacher, or a nurse.  But I’m the best me I can be. Loud, bawdy, quiet and shy.  I’m all of that and more.  
Soon, it will lead me to finally do something I have dreamed of since I was 12, I will become a  writer, hopefully a published one. It is the most terrifying thing ever, but it’s my dream and I plan to do what I always wanted to do…I don’t know what I want to say, but surely, I have plenty to say, right? 

Then the next time I’m asked if I am doing what I wanted to do, I can say  without any hesitation “yes I am!”