Not Everyone Grows Up to Be an Astronaut

I am not an astronaut. Nor am I a doctor, a lawyer, a maker of useful things. At this point in my life, I am cleaning other people's things. They call, we schedule, and I arrive on their doorstep, vacuum and mop in hand- with an intense desire to make their world shinier, so that they will have me back.

When I was five, I wanted to be a parent. At eight, married. By middle school, I wanted to be a teacher. In high school, an author (with closet daydreams of space travel). Come college, I threw caution to the wind, and decided to study performance theatre and philosophy, with some extensive dabbling in writing and improvisation. After a late graduation (yeah, depressive episodes!), I meandered until I found myself working at a pharmaceutical company- eventually becoming a supervisor. I was good at my job, they paid me well, it was something my family was proud of, and there was a good chance I was going to buy a home in the next year or two... but I couldn't make it stick. In the world of job-dating, we'd gone as far as we could- we'd discussed the future, ignoring the big question for as long as we could- and while we'd made that little 401k together, I wasn't going to be able to stick around and watch it grow up.

There are defining moments in all of our lives- I'm sure you've noticed a few of them,. They aren't always big moments, nor particularly loud. If we aren't paying attention, some of the more significant ones can slip right by us, their importance lost in the haze of day-to-day life. In my time in pharmaceuticals, I had several big moments that I ignored, for the sake of steadiness. Moments that I'm not sure about- odd mixtures of pride, shame, and regret- which I understand are a few of the hallmark signs of making choices. In those moments that I ignored, I was making choices away from the ephemeral maybes in my life, toward the tangible world of home-ownership and increasing debt (okay, that one not-so-tangible). But choices they were... whether I consciously acknowledged them, or not.

At this point in my life, I am not a single one of the things I desired to be when I was younger. Unlike Frank Turner, the artist behind the title of this blog, I am not a bad ass singer/songwriter, either. But there is a misfit in here, craving acknowledgement and a few chances to fail gloriously. I'm hoping to use this blog to document such attempts... and maybe a glorious success.