I Did Not Become What I Wanted To Be When I Grew Up

It's a pretty common question when you're a little kid: What do you want to be when you grow up?

But it's kind of an intimidating question, too.  I mean, I'm seven, can I take a little more time before I decide what I want to do for the rest of my life?

Now the answer may change quite a bit over the years, and I know that mine certainly did.  And not always can we end up being exactly what we wanted when we were five.  Spaceman is not a common occupation, I don't think.  And not many of us are rock stars or movie stars.  When I was really small, I wanted to grow up to be a cat.

That didn't quite work out for me.

As I got a little older, I really liked school, so I wanted to be a teacher. I even did a lot of stuff in High School to prepare for that - Cadet Teaching,  assisting in Summer School, stuff like that.  There was something off though as I started to get further and further into the process.  I started to realize how much I didn't like the kind of micro management paperwork parts that were coming with it.  I guess my temperament had changed, because I didn't mind that before. I did all sorts of organizing/filing/paperwork for teachers before.  Maybe I liked the idea of being an assistant to the teacher rather than actually being the teacher itself.

So I was in a bit of a pickle. I was stewing and hemming about it for a summer, and thought, well, I guess I just have to go through with it. I can't just stop and switch  majors now. I remember the moment, I was walking across the campus of what was then CMSU and it was a cold early spring day.  I literally stopped in my tracks and asked myself, "Well, why can't I?  It's my life. Why can't I do something I want to do?" I did some research and had some long thinking sessions when I realized that I liked talking about music the most of anything in my life.  I made the decision to just go for it.

It wasn't til about my junior year of college that I decided to become a radio DJ.  Lucky for me, that turned out - one of our former employees, Tina Sapp, ended up getting married and moving to Canada just as I was graduating (She's doing great by the way, she's got a little boy and two twin girls).   And now, what, almost 15 years later, here I am.  So now, I want to know about you.  What did you want to be when you grew up?  Did you get there, or are you somewhere else?

Totally Grown Up,

Behka