Mommy, I Want To Be An Astronaut When I Grow Up..

What do I want to be when I grow up?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I’m 25 years old, and this is the one question I ask people when I first meet them, regardless of their age. Their answer inevitably tells a lot about their mentality, their goals, and their desires. Some will answer “I’m already a grown up.” I call bullshit.

I can rant and rave about what a grown up is, but that is an entirely new post unto itself. But I think the XYZ generations don’t ever really grow up. We’ve never had to, not really. We still play video games, read comics, doodle in the margins. We still play hide and seek, truth or dare, and freeze tag. I’ve talked to the baby boomer generation. They are grown ups, and more power to them for that. They had to deal with more things at younger ages than we have to now. They had limited choices and different life goals. I don’t want to hear anyone argue this either. As a woman, what careers could you have? Many were teachers, nurses, or secretaries until they decided to have children and stay at home. Vacuuming in pearls and having dinner on the table. I think this is awesome, amazing, fantastic. I’m actually quite hurt that this isn’t as prevalent as it used to be. And here I am going into a diatribe over something I mentioned would be devoted to a different post. But, ah, things needed to be said.

So I bring it back around, what do I want to be when I grow up, because I’m definitely not a grown up now. As mentioned previously, I’m at a sort of crossroads with my life. Remember that lovely Venn Diagram? Where do I go? I can tell you I’m vastly uninspired at the moment with my career. I love my job, and what I do, but I’m following the Head/ Wallet trail, wistfully gazing at the Heart road meandering away in a different direction. But what career choice would make me happy and fulfilled?

When you read the articles, fill out the quizzes, and delve deep into your psyche to find your meaning in life, it essentially comes down to, “What what the first thing you remember wanting to do when you were little?” I liked to draw. I drew a lot. I colored a lot, too. First I had this trick-or-treat plastic pumpkin filled to the brim with crayons. An unending cauldron of colorful delights. Then I left it outside and it melted into a solid brick of color. I later grew into a lunch pail full of markers. This was my “fun pack.” I drew all the time and on everything. I was an artist before anything else. As I grew older the thought of being an artist thrilled me, closely followed by the fears and doubts of not being good enough. Not being abstract or creative enough. I had no direction but was told if you’re an artist you’ll struggle the rest of your life. I know they meant financially, but how true those words ring. I could mutate this post into the my thoughts of the mentality of artists, but I think this train of thought really needs some time to flourish on it’s own, and not be crammed into a summary of a few sentences. I eventually gave up on drawing, and instead went for a more lucrative career in graphic design. I love being a designer, but it lacks a little of the… shall we say, razzle dazzle? So I stopped drawing. And I stopped for years. I knew I wasn’t good enough, everyone was always that much better at a much younger age. I just stopped trying. I put the hopes and dreams of being an artist in a little box and locked it away.

About a year ago I decided to make a graphic novel, so I picked up my pencil again. I started writing my grand tale. This story, by the way, is now trapped on a hard drive on a dead computer. And it’s no longer a graphic novel, but just a normal one. I gave up the idea of illustrating it myself because I didn’t have the skill set to keep it going, and somewhere in my brain I thought I might be a semi-decent writer. After reading my rants, I think we can all agree I’m not a great writer either. I don’t really excel in sentence structure. I found, after a five year break from drawing, that I had reverted back to the same level of ability as middle school. I couldn’t make anything look right, not even a form look three dimensional. How could this be? I used to actually be able to draw something and it look like that same something, not a scribble on a page. Something caught fire at that moment. I wanted to draw. I wanted to get better, so I started to draw again. Not a lot at first. A small doodle here, a face there, a mentally disturbed girl huddled in the corner with a hatchet…I was drawing again. I had dreams of being an artist again. Well, if not a full blown artist, someone who would get to draw a lot and be good at it.

And now I draw, but it’s still not very good, but have yet to give up on it. And isn’t that the key, not giving up? Especially when it’s so easy to give up on something when it takes a lot of work. I feel like I stunted my potential 5 years ago by taking the easy road, and now I’m serving my penance. At 25 I’m most likely too old to make something of myself in the comic industry or the illustration market. My skill set at the moment is too limited, my understanding of light sources too rudimentary. But something in my soul is keeping me driven. Can I deny that feeling? Do I give up something that doesn’t completely fulfill me to really concentrate on something that does make me happy? That I really want to be good at?  I know you can’t answer these questions for me, but they nag at my brain. So now I try hard to not fall victim to letting this handicap of time discourage me. The fear alone of giving up everything and it not working seems to paralyze me from giving it my all.

I don’t know what I’ll end up doing when I grow up, if I grow up. But I can tell you one thing, I won’t be an astronaut.