When I was little, I had a million things I wanted to be when I grew up. Whenever asked that famous question, I would rattle them off in a list, barely slowing down to catch my breath. As all little girls will tell you, ballerina and actress were included (as well as the occasional princess…hey we can dream), but there were some others on there as well. With a natural talent for grammer and word choice, I have always wanted to be a writer. Whether fiction or non-fiction, I would LOVE to have work published. I used to write stories as a little kid and print them out complete with a cover page and show them to my mom. With The Babysitter’s Club as my main inspiration, they were full of big families with crazy names and silly goings-on. As I got older, I wrote for the school newspaper which later morphed into a magazine and experienced a whole new arena of writing: journalism. For a few years, I became infatuated with media. Taking on more responsibilities and furthering my knowledge through classes in high school, I was sure I would go on to college to major in journalism and then write for a daily paper or a monthly magazine like my all-time favorite, Cosmo.
In addition to writing, I’ve always wanted to be a teacher and I thought this aspect of my career would fit in nicely in the educational world as well, being able to teach the subject I loved to high school or college students. My sister and I would play “school” all the time as kids, and we even had a pretend classroom on our screened in porch. I can’t remember the details and I was infamous for setting up the aesthetics of playtime and then tiring of it before playtime actually began, so I can’t tell you if anything was taught, but it was something that carried through to my adolescent years as a dream of mine. To this day, my biggest wish is to become a high school English teacher, teaching journalism on the side (much like my favorite teacher in high school) and then probably coaching the cheerleading team. Besides being surrounded by the multiple subjects I love, it would also give me the schedule necessary to take care of a family with weekends, school vacations, and summers off.
My life changed took a new path when I stopped by the MAC counter in Bloomingdale’s during my freshman year of college. I met a makeup artist named Jessica who instilled my love for all things cosmetics and started me on a very different road. Through watching her and attending MAC customer classes, I learned how to do makeup and by practicing for years, I’m now pretty good at it. I do work for photo shoots and weddings, and always help out my friends for formals and special occasions. It turned into a dream of mine to be a makeup artist for runway, tv and movies.
Right now I feel a little lost. I feel like I have all these ideas of goals and dreams, but I don’t really have anything set in stone. This morning on the radio, they were talking about what dying people had said were their biggest regrets in life. One of the most popular answers was that they hadn’t achieved their dreams due to lack of trying. I don’t want to have that same regret. The only problem is I don’t really know where to go from here. One of my biggest dreams is to go back to college and graduate, which is impossible to do at the same thanks to my former negligence of financial situations. I’m currently working through my debt and hopefully will be in good standing and able to go back to school within the next few years, but I still feel like I’m at a stand still, like I should be doing MORE. I just don’t know where to start or what to do. I’m thinking I should probably nail down exactly what I want from life before I go about trying to be everything because that is just setting myself up for failure. I feel like I need a life coach slash fairy godmother to point me in the right direction. Good thing I don’t put much stock in psychics because I’d probably be there every other day. I just wish I didn’t have such a hard time making decisions and that I motivate myself in any direction. I have all these ideas of how to change myself for the better (work out, eat better, clean more often) and for my future, but I have the hardest time actually applying the ideas to real life. I don’t know if it’s something fundamentally wrong with me or if I’m just being lazy, but I just don’t know where to go with all my ideas. I should probably speak to that little girl from all those years ago and tell her to make up her damn mind.
Bononno 