In my "School Memories" book are listed, year by year, what I wanted to be when I grew up. In regular rotation from Kindergarten until sixth grade (apparently after sixth grade one stopped considering what they wanted to be when they grew up). Mostly I wanted to be:
Naturally I'd be wildly successful as a ballerina/author/artist. I'd live a carefree life among the geniuses of my time in Paris and London and New York City, mostly living in garrets and wearing berets. I'd wear only black (with a string of pearls--ala' Coco Chanel, I'd take lovers but no husband, and children? Perish the thought! (Where did I get these ideas? What was I reading? Lovers? Paris? Seriously!) I wanted nothing to do with the ordinary lives other people led--laundry, raising children, bowling on Friday nights. I'd own nothing but a suitcase full of fashionable clothes and a bookcase filled with books. Material items were for regular people, not artistes!
In 3rd grade I wrote that I wanted to be this when I grew up:
Yes, I wanted to be a "restaurant owner."
What happened? I was a dance major in college while working as a waitress and bartender. Eschewing a life of anorexia, I switched majors to study English because I loved to read. Several years after waiting on customers, I decided that working every weekend, holiday and evening was a rotten life and tossed that crazy dream out the window.
For a decade or so I taught high school and a little college. Then I did some freelance work for websites. And now?
I see I'm left with artist or author.
And I bowl every other Friday night in the winter, I run the local PTA, I live in Wisconsin, I raise 3 children and I am the epitome of Boring Normal. I have no lovers and a storage room in the basement full of stuff. Mostly I wear blue jeans and I don't wear a strand of pearls. (Insert quote by Langston Hughes here.)
What was your childhood fantasy life? Did you live it? Do you? Let me live vicariously through you!
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