When I Grow Up. . .

A short reflection before I collapse into bed.

From childhood on up through my first year of college, I was sure I wanted to be a teacher and a writer. There was a time when I was 13 and had just started watching Frasier that I wanted to be a psychiatrist and a writer. I shadowed the local librarian one day, and I wanted to be a librarian and a writer for a couple of weeks.

When I first joined the high school band, I determined I wanted to be a band director and a writer. Then I got really into designing houses in The Sims 2, and I wanted to be an architect and a writer.

Eventually, I decided I didn’t want to be a teacher at all. Or a psychiatrist, librarian, band director, or architect. I did want to be a writer, and I had no idea what else I wanted to be.

I got a degree in journalism, and I certainly enjoyed the work of editing and design. But I’d read Ben Bradlee’s A Good Life, and I didn’t want to be a small town newspaper journalist. I wanted to be an editor at the Washington Post in the 1970s.

Turns out the only thing I really, definitely want to be when I grow up (whenever that is) is a writer. Every story is a gateway into an alternate life I want to explore, and that’s a far more satisfying way to live for me than trying to chase one path to its end.

I watched Scrubs, and I wanted to be a doctor. I watched Cheers, and I wanted to tend bar. I watched wrestling, and I wanted to be a wrestler. I watched Make Some Noise, and I wanted to be an improv comedian.

But I’m squeamish, hate bars, don’t like pain, and I’m not really fond of being on stage.

I’m running on just a couple of hours of interrupted sleep so you’ll forgive me if I’ve lost the plot. The point is that I’m finally coming around to understand that anything else I do is just to feed the writer. At last.

Last night, I read the introduction to the complete illustrated edition of Le Guin’s Earthsea works. I noticed it was dated February 2016, and so it seems meant to be that this month should be dedicated, in part, to a deep read of Earthsea.

Hopefully more sleep tonight will allow me to get straight into that after work tomorrow. I suppose I’m rereading A Wizard of Earthsea again already. Handy that Le Guin’s work is, for me, like a song I can revisit over and over without tiring.

Until next time.