“I could have been” | The Ivory Hut

Let’s say we traveled back in time some twenty-odd years (I’m pushing it, but hey, nine is an odd number, right?), and you asked me the classic “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’ll bet you all the homemade bread you can eat that I would have never answered, “I want to be a girl who writes about the random stuff in her head and in her kitchen—and takes photos of everything.”

(To be honest, growing up with two brothers and a slew of male cousins, I doubt I would have even referred to myself as a “girl.” For the longest time, I really believed I was a boy, like everyone else in the family. Then again, I also remember thinking that I was a baby dragon. Or Wonder Woman.)

When I graduated from high school, I had absolutely no clue what I wanted to do. My college major was a stab in the dark. Literally. No, I’m not kidding. I laid the list of majors on my desk, took a pencil, closed my eyes, and randomly … stabbed. And that was how I ended up with my first major: biology. As a testament to the infallibility (not) of the stab method, my succeeding majors were so dissimilar, they were in completely separate areas of study.

Sometimes, I find myself wondering what my life would have been like if I had just stuck to my first major. (Or my third one.) Or what about all the different things I wanted to be when I was much younger? I had dreams of becoming a fighter pilot. A teacher. Nun. Spy. Ninja. I also thought about becoming a jungle guide, mostly because I wanted to have a reason to walk around with a big old jungle knife tied to my belt. Yep. I definitely thought I was a boy.

The other day, I found a mess of old photos that my dad sent me a few years ago. And as I looked through them, I saw myself as a kid doing so many different things that it’s no wonder my career goals were all over the place. My parents gave me such a wealth and variety of experiences, all of which I enjoyed so thoroughly that, as a child, I thought, “I can soooo do this for a living when I grow up, and I’d have so much fun and be the best in the world at it that I’d earn lots and lots of money—then I can give it away to the poor, make them happy, and get someone to name a chocolate bar after me.”

Do keep in mind that I was about eight. Although … I do kinda still want someone to name a chocolate bar after me.

And so I thought I’d start a series of occasional posts where I’ll be sharing all the possible careers I could have chosen, with photographic evidence to back each one up. Because it’s not enough for me to once in a while wonder what could have been had I stuck to pre-med and become a doctor like I originally planned. I think it’s time to step back, look at the big picture, and realize that medicine wasn’t the first career detour of my life.

Because, for all I know, if things had worked out differently, I could have been …