Guest Blog - Life of an Emerging Adult: An Uneven Slouch Toward Adulthood

Our discussion continues about last week's New York Times article about Twentysomethings as "emerging adults." Our guest blogger, Lukus Williams, provides his witty and insightful take on the ups and downs of unemployment as a recent college grad. Enjoy!

Life of an Emerging Adult: An Uneven Slouch Toward Adulthood

By Lukus Williams

April 15, 2010

Just when it was appearing to turn bleak, I got a response! I’ll be interviewing next week at a large university for an editorial assistant position I applied for nearly a month ago. This is the exact, perfect position for me and words simply cannot describe how psyched I am for this chance. If I get this job I’ll be able to move back to the city I love so much and be closer to all my friends once again – essentially I’ll get my life back, which has been on hold ever since graduation.

April 22, 2010

I aced it! He shoots, he scores! After running the interview through my head, and calling up every friend to get their thoughts… I just know I got the job. My portfolio, my experience, my enthusiasm – they were impressed, I could tell. The definitive way in which they spoke about the nuts and bolts of the job after the questions were through (*when* you start, etc…) is a sure sign I’ll be packing my bags soon. This is finally happening, I’m getting my life back.

April 29, 2010

Received my rejection letter today: no job. They wrote as if I had been the runner up in a competition, that over eighty people had applied and they only interviewed the four most qualified. They were incredibly impressed by me, but in the end decided to choose someone with an advanced degree in the field.

Seriously? What? Not only do I have to beat out over eighty people for a chance to be interviewed based on my cover letter writing skills alone, but now I have to compete for entry-level jobs, that barely pays a living wage in San Diego, with hopefuls who have Master’s degrees? How am I ever going to come out on top in that situation? I need to spend another $20,000 on education so that I can make $30,000 a year?

I thought this was my ticket out of my parents house. I thought this was the start of my life again. I thought I could finally begin doing all the things I’d been dreaming about, all the things my college education would allow me to achieve. Will I ever get out of here?

August 26, 2010

I’m up to five interviews now since my first one back in late April. Each one I do better than the last, and each one I receive an even more heartfelt rejection from my almost-employer:

“We had over 100 applicants, and interviewed five of the most outstanding candidates. You truly had exceptional skills and interviewed well, however we have decided to offer the position to a more experienced candidate, who has accepted.”

The job hunt, the interview process – they are a competition, only there is no prize for second place.

After reading Robin Henig’s piece, “What Is It About 20-Somethings?” I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or hurl my laptop across the room.

The author haughtily muses about the advantages and disadvantages of letting us 20-somethings meander into the responsibilities of adulthood, as if there is some committee that decides what a generation should be doing, while I pray that my 1400^th job application isn’t just being tossed into the void. If there is some societal authority allowing me to languish in this lifeless existence in the doldrums… I would like to kindly ask him/her/it/them to cut it out and let me move on.

Where Henig sees an awkward moment of exploration and questioning, wondering if maybe we should all be cut off and told to “find something, anything, to put food on the table and get on with [our] lives,” I just thank God/Flying Spaghetti Monster/Your Favorite Deity that my parents don’t just “cut [me] off.”

What would happen if I was kicked to the curb? Easy answer, I’d be homeless at best. Some “tough love” isn’t going to erase a 20% unemployment rate. Henig’s audacity astounds me to no ends; presuming that I and other’s in my age group are futility attempting to hold back the flood of adult life and responsibilities, but the reality of our situation could not be further from her postulating.

The reality is, I don’t date anymore – I have no desire to even entertain the possibility with my life the way it is currently. The longer this goes on, the further and further away I get from meeting her milestones in the most ideal fashion. When I finally get back on track, I’m not going to have some wonderfully advantageous career thanks to my excellent college degree. No, I probably won’t even make enough money to avoid needing roommates and simultaneously pay my student loans back. And owning a house, or even a car is going to be totally beyond my means – exactly the type of scenario I want to start a family in, right?

I don’t need sympathy, but some empathy would definitely be nice. Mostly, I’d really just like to kill this blatantly false idea that every college grad goes off to search for the meaning of life and their purpose in it while becoming a drain on their parents and society.

{Photo credit here goes to Mike Licht, Notionscapital.com via Flickr}

The Roaring Twentysomethings and Reclaiming Adulthood: A Response to The New York Times

Last week the New York Times published an article entitled “What is it about TwentySomethings?” that has generated frenzied conversation around the web. I have purposefully avoided reading The Slate’s, and the Huffington Post’s, and Salon’s responses to the article until I could really delve into the piece, draw my own conclusions, and bring them to Welcome to Adulthood for discussion[*]. At the end of it all, I want to hear from you. After all, we are a blog about adulthood, so this is a territory we are experts on – whether we are twentysomething or not.

[*]I have said it before, and I will say it again, we are so lucky to have a brain trust of super smart, interesting, and insightful readers who, time and time again, prove just how valuable collective wisdom is. A fellow blogger once told me that the soul of a blog is in its comments, and I really believe that is true. Thanks again for all your infinite wisdom, Adulthooders, and keep those comments coming.

The author of the NY Times piece, Robin Marantz Henig, relies on one main source as she explores her topic, a professor of psychology at Clark University named Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Arnett’s claim is that twentysomethings represent a new developmental stage that he calls “emerging adulthood.”

According to Arnett, this stage is when twentysomethings are finding their way, either in college or out of college, with a job or without, and he sees this as a time period of self-exploration.

He believes that in the 21^st century, where there is less pressure to “become an adult” so quickly (he is equating adulthood as marriage, good job, house, and family, pretty much in that order), twentysomethings are instead using the time to languish in the decade. Many live at home with their parents, many do not have good jobs or a career path, and many engage in serial dating (not a term he uses, but he may as well have) as opposed to getting married.

Henig offers interesting data (or should I say data couched in judgement, see my comments following) to support Arnett’s claims:

The 20s are a black box, and there is a lot of churning in there. One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch. Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married. And marriage occurs later than ever. The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation.

But the problem with Henig’s rhetoric here is that a loaded sentence frames her data: she likens the 20s to a black box, with “a lot of churning.” A black box reads to me as a mysterious, closed-system only really examined in times of disaster. And "a lot of churning" seems to indicate that within this closed-system is a lot of noise and movement, but not much logic.

At another point in the article Henig writes:

The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain un­tethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life.

Here she is suggesting that the twentysomethings’ lack of relationship and good job, as well as taking the option of a graduate degree or Teach for America are because they are languishing in not having responsibilities. The word “forestall” suggests to me an active kind of laziness that is premeditated in an effort to put off responsible living.

But it might not be our fault, she intimates.

Henig cites some studies on how the brain is still not fully mature in these twentysomething years, and thus we are not ready to be stable and mature adults. She also talks about how many parents aid and abed the twentysomethings by continuing to support them emotionally and financially while they find their path. So, for twentysomethings it is Nature and Nurture that contribute to their lack of “adult” motivations, at least that’s what Henig seems to suggest.

While she does mention the economy, and that the economic downturn may have something to do with this generation’s challenges, it comes near the conclusion of the article as an afterthought:

Of course, the recession complicates things, and even if every 20-something were ready to skip the “emerging” moratorium and act like a grown-up, there wouldn’t necessarily be jobs for them all. So we’re caught in a weird moment, unsure whether to allow young people to keep exploring and questioning or to cut them off and tell them just to find something, anything, to put food on the table and get on with their lives.

In the end, Henig endorses Arnett’s call for a “middle road” that lets twentysomethings “meander” but which ultimately makes them better and more successful real adults (I say real, because that seems to be what they are implying with this “emerging adulthood” business.) If this is true, she says, “then Arnett’s vision of an insightful, sensitive, thoughtful, content, well-honed, self-actualizing crop of grown-ups would indeed be something worth waiting for.”

One problem I have with the article is that the tone seems snarky. Her use of loaded words and phrases like some of the ones I have already pointed out, as well as some I didn’t point out but should have (“...to cut them off and tell them to just find something, anything…”), makes it read like an accusation rather than an expository article. If an author comes off too judgemental, she is bound to expect some criticism. And maybe it's because I am 29 and feel defensive. Or maybe it is because I blog about adulthood and feel there is real value in learning lessons all throughout your life, not just in your twenties. Either way, I think her tone didn’t do much for her credibility and ethos.

As far as the actual argument, I think there is a lot of truth to the idea that the twentysomething years are a lot more complicated than they used to be. In fact, it is something we have even blogged about before on WelcometoAdulthood.

What Henig's article lacks is a bigger-picture contextual analysis of the changing and challenging road that twentysomethings have faced since probably the 1960s. She also does not take into consideration the complex racial and gender politics that existed historically (and still do in many ways) that severly limited opportunity for many twentysomethings.

Recently on Adulthood, we learned from our discussion comments on feminism and the modern housewife that the feminist movement allowed women to make choices. It opened up opportunities and dialogue for women, and slowly but surely affected change unto the workforce and into the domestic realm. Women today can choose their path, and don’t have to run off at 18 years old and get married and start a family if they don’t want to.

I take issue with the term “emerging adult” because it insinuates that during this twentysomething period our decisions are uninformed and immature. To make a choice to find a career path before starting a family is, in my view, more of a self-actualized adult then the under-employed, unskilled 18 year old who gets married and starts a family. (And here is my disclaimer: not that being 18 and having a family is a bad thing, but these days I think it probably is a lot harder.)

And this isn’t just about women. Men too have more choices without the pressure to "settle down" and start a family and bring home the paycheck every week. Men and women alike are choosing to go back to graduate school not just “for lack of better options” (though the economy does really suck, and grad school isn’t a bad decision when the alternative means sitting around doing nothing in between your entry level retail job at The Gap) but because we will be more competive in the workforce, and thus have more choices with a graduate degree. And putting in the hard work and financial investment into college and graduate school is a very adult decision because it insures there will be choices.

And choices=security. And secure adults hopefully means secure families one day. And if that takes me ten years to work towards, I am entering my thirties a wiser person.

Instead of framing it like Henig does, “Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up?” (she actually does write that) we need to celebrate our twentysomething years. I contend that twentysomethings are not “emerging adults” but should be more appropriately labeled “evolving adults.” The lessons learned during the twenties are lessons that previous generations of adults never had the CHOICE to learn.

Being given the option to learn these lessons on our own timeline, in the long run probably will make us more evolved adults then the generations that preceded us.

And though I’m destined to be one of those “forstalling” twentysomethings that doesn’t have kids until well into their 30s, I’ll proudly pass down the same sense of wonder, mixed with my decade-of-twentysomething-wisdom, to my kids and applaud them all along the way, just like my mom did for me.

29 years old and I have almost made it through the 20s: but not without my share of college drop-out semesters, 3 different colleges, many waitressing jobs, 3 different boyfriends, 3 times moving home with mom, 5 different cities of residence, 16 different apartments, and a head-first jump into grad school. I am the archetypal twentysomething. I turned out ok.

Adulthooders, what about you? Do you agree with Henig’s assessment of the lazy twentysomething crowd? How have you/did you survive in your twenties? Any and all thoughts on this subject are welcomed in the comments!

-Mara “Those Darn Kids Are So Noisy” Stringfield

Photo via Flickr by Dpstyles.

Wordless Wednesday: Adulthood is Complicated

-Morgan

(photo by me!)

Has Feminism Ruined It for the Working Mother?

“Women do almost as well as men today, as long as they don’t have children.”

This week, New York Times writer David Leonhard wrote an interesting article about working mothers. His argument ties really nicely to the rousing discussion we had on Adulthood just a few weeks ago.

Leonhard sees the Supreme Court as an example of how working mothers are discriminated against in the workplace. He writes, “The last three men nominated to the Supreme Court have all been married and, among them, have seven children. The last three women — Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Harriet Miers (who withdrew) — have all been single and without children. This little pattern makes the court a good symbol of the American job market.”

Leonhard goes on to highlight the disparity in salaries between men and women (on average, women make 23% less than men -- that is a lot) and he blames the economy for giving women very little options when it comes to career and family.

Leonhard writes that the time women take off for maternity leave and other parenting leave often closes off career paths and takes away opportunity for women to get promotions (and thus, higher pay).

Why is does it close off career paths?

Leonhard suggests it is a cultural phenomenon. He quotes Columbia Professor, Jane Walfogel, “American feminists made a conscious choice to emphasize equal rights and equal opportunities” says Walfogel, “but not to talk about policies that would address family responsibilities.” Leonhard contends that it is not sexism that creates gender equality in the workplace, but rather the consequences of “not following the old-fashion career path.” (i.e. taking time off work to birth a child)

Women with children are more likely to opt for flexible schedules, or work part time, or take more time off, he says. Until society and the economy stop viewing these options as a career-destroyer, Leonhard thinks not much will change.

Leonhard calls for open and honest dialogue about the demands of being a working parent (fathers and mothers alike), suggesting that this real dialogue may eventually change the workplace paradigm that punishes women for being mothers.

As Walfogel said, “Women do almost as well as men today, as long as they don’t have children.”

What do you think?

Can women have it all: a great job, a family, and a balanced life? Did the feminist push for equal rights in the workplace damage women’s opportunities to succeed as a full-time working parent? Do you agree or disagree with Leonhard’s claim? Let’s have a discussion! Sound off in the comments.

-Mara

(photo by *midtownsky* photostream via Flickr)

I was Betty Draper

"...too lazy or stupid or unlucky to be the president of the United States"?

I read an article on Salon today called I was Betty Draper and I wanted to share it and a couple of thoughts with the adulthood world.

The author talks about how girls of her (and my) generation were taught to grow up to be Peggy Olson, not Betty Draper but she identifies more with Betty. In case you don't watch Mad Men, (how can you not watch Mad Men?) Peggy Olson's character is a secretary turned copywriter, the first woman in her office to do it in a long time. She is seen as a successful go getter who is going to make it in a man's world. Betty Draper, is a stay at home wife and mother. And she is unhappy.

The author's assertion is so interesting to me: she says we were pushed more in the direction of, "brain surgeon, judge, astronaut"... anything we wanted (or maybe anything our mother's wanted us to be) and definitely not in the direction of a housewife, which is for someone, "too lazy or stupid or unlucky to be the president of the United States".

I totally agree.

Read the article and let me know what you think. Discuss in the comments.

-Morgan

[photo via Mad Men and WhatWouldMarilynDo]

Guest Blog: Graduating into Fred Mertz's Pants

The new year is upon us and the world of Welcome to Adulthood 2009 just wouldn't be complete without a guest blog visit from Lukus Williams. When I first read Luke's piece I literally laughed out loud in my super quiet office. (Hopefully my colleagues didn't catch on that I was spending a little down time reading and chuckling about Luke's metaphor for adulthood -- a pair of extremely high waisted dress slacks.) Luke's piece is as funny and entertaining as it is insightful. I could brag about how talented of a writer he is, his impressive list of writing gigs, his graphic design-cred (photo credit below goes to him also), and all that good stuff, but I will let his piece speak for itself.

I am thrilled and honored to have Luke as a guest blogger (yes, his comments are the ones that usually generate lots of great discussion, and we are happy to finally hear more of him) and I hope you will "LOL" just as much as I did when reading his work. As always, let's show him some love in the comments!


Graduating into Fred Mertz’s Pants
By Lukus Williams

It was long, it was messy, but I did it. I’ve graduated from college (well, as soon as ‘State gets back from vacation and mails out diplomas). Now I may have been living on my own, holding various jobs, and being more or less self-sufficient for some time now… but I’ve always been in school. From Little Bo Peep Daycare in Lansing, Michigan to San Diego State University.

By all measures, I’d say this blog entry will be as close as I get to a proper debut onto the adulthood scene. So, let it be official: I’m of good breeding, marriageable-age, and now eligible for a career with retirement benefits. Hello world!

But before I tackle Aldous Huxley’s future with my journalism degree in hand, I’m allowing myself a bit of regression. A last hurrah. A chance to relish my final, guaranteed vacation: the likes of which only students and teachers are allowed.
I’m home for the holidays. Cue Christmas music and G-rated hi-jinks.

I get to be fourteen instead of twenty-four (or maybe sixteen since I’m driving) at my parents’, and that means having fun, and being waited on. Not that I’m lazy here, but having dinner made and laundry washed (if put into the clothes hamper!) sure makes me feel like I’m being pampered. Living on my own might be a blast, but my roomies never pick-up after me.

It hasn’t been too difficult, this letting go and enjoying a break. However, there are a few anxieties about my near-future tiptoeing around the edge of my thoughts. You might think I’d be biting my fingernails at the prospect of finding employment in this economy. Luckily I didn’t major in artistic philosophy, so I’m not too concerned with my serious, full-time (and grown-up!) job search, as I’ve got a modest-sized bag of experience along with mad skillz and many prospects.

My true fear is in regards to the real, concrete changes that I see on the horizon. Want to know the biggest one of all? The giant antagonist in my adulthood future? Clothes.

That’s right, clothes. Suits, ties, slacks, sweater-vests (shudder), loafers, blazers, and suspenders… I cower in fear and disgust at the thought of wearing such a costume everyday. Because up until now, that outfit was just a costume, something I put on for a meeting here or and interview there. I readily grasp the importance of professional dress and its impact on personal impressions, I’ve simply had little need or desire to appear professional more than a couple hours out of every week, but now I’m faced with the prospect of looking like that Monday through Friday. It’s horrifying. I don’t even like pants to begin with, and I make attempts to wear shorts whenever possible!

I’m resigned to the fact that I’ll need to wear my hair short and boring so as to not offend my potential 30-something bosses that began to bald in their 20s. But the suits. Ugh. I just can’t wrap my mind around it. The inner-child who’s been in the pilot’s seat for the last twenty-four years will surely be kicking and screaming all the way to the Men’s Warehouse.

I’ve heard many pro-suit arguments, from the whole “look the part” set all the way to “women dig it,” but what I’m really looking for now are coping mechanisms. Is the paycheck motivation enough, or will I need to bring an SDSU shirt and some boardshorts with me to work so I can change the moment the clock strikes 5? Someone have a list of the top ultra casual businesses in San Diego hiring writers/editors/graphic designers/manual laborers? Does David Tennant’s Dr. Who “geek-chic” count as professional attire? Do slacks always have to look like Fred Mertz’s pants? What are the things that you attach from the bottom of your shirt to your socks to make the shirt stay in place called, and do people actually wear them? Why must dress-shirt manufacturers assume that my arms are impossibly long simply because I’m over six feet tall?


This adulthood thing, it’s going to be like my stint as a four-year-old ring barer all over again, isn’t it?

Guest Blog: All I Need to Know, I Learned in Preschool

I am thrilled to introduce our next guest blogger, Nicole (picture above), who also happens to be one of my very best friends. She gave me permission to use a piece she had written last year, which is actually an excerpt from a book she is compiling of the same title.

This piece is all about transition, and was written shortly before Nicole relocated from California to Arizona. (Her transition, I must note, was a success. She met her future husband and is getting married in less than a month. More to come on that, I am sure.) I hope you enjoy this little vignette as much as I do. As you are reading it, think of transitions you have made in your life. How did you learn from each transition? How hard was it to adjust? What about the transition really helped evolve you into who you are today? Also, consider what lessons you may have learned in preschool that you have carried with you in your life. Let's discuss in the comments. And stay tuned at welcometoadulthood.com for more from Nicole and her book.

All I Need to Know, I Learned in Preschool
by Nicole Carpenter
Matthew, a two-year old (who happens to have a fabulous blonde mullet), started preschool a few weeks ago. The experience has been...well, pretty much torture for him.

During the day we have classes for the toddlers. We have four rooms...and each age group (2,3,4,5) rotate rooms every 20 minutes. When the rotation occurs, Matthew freaks out. He starts crying hysterically, and repeats the infamous preschool mantra, "I want my mom!". He frantically grasps the leg of his current teacher in hopes of not leaving the classroom that he has currently found comfort in.

The other teachers and I have discussed Matthew's fear of 'transition/change'. The resistance to facing the unknown has hindered him from enjoying playtime and learning. We know, as adults, that everything is going to be okay for Matthew. Although the classrooms and the kids are unfamiliar--it's in his best interest to socialize and experience new things. He can't stay at home forever. We know, that mom will be back to pick him up at one o'clock. We know, that if any problem/danger happens, the teachers will be right there to solve the problem. Matthew needs to accept that the state of transition is a positive thing.

For a two-year old, the preschool is a big place, BUT I can see from my adult perspective that what seems overbearing to Matthew is actually not at all. He can handle it, the rewards are abundant, and his fears are energy wasted.

After having a tumoltous and nomadic lifestyle as a kid, one would assume that I have mastered the art of transition. Truthfully, it is one of my biggest weaknesses. Like Matthew...during times of change, I frantically grasp the leg of comfort and familiarity in hopes of stopping the unknown from becoming known. I fear my ability to handle it and the loss of what I am leaving.

As I contemplate Matthew's situation, I question whether a higher power is looking down on me during times of change and saying, "Nicole, let go. It's okay...THIS is for your best interest. You're wasting time fighting, just embrace it. I know that everything is okay, and I will pick you up when it's all over."

Looks like me and little Matthew have a lot in common...minus the beautiful mullet, of course. When life feels a little unsettling and scary...LET GO. Life is a journey, an experience that we should hold open arms to.

[photo courtesy of N.O.]

On Loving Your Job: An Exploration of Utility, Passion, and Genocide

I have thinking about the topic of "what I want to be when I grow up" a bit more thanks to your great comments.

I think I left a very important point unaccounted for in my previous post. That is: should we pursue something we love as our career? And, if we happen to not be working in a field we love, is loving our job the most important thing?

It would be nice if what I loved was law, or medicine, or math, or business -- something marketable. But, what if the thing that you really love is not marketable? Then what? Do you settle for something you don't love to pay the bills and do what you love as a hobby? If that is the case, still 80% of your waking life is doing something you don't love. Depressing.

So if you are not doing something you love, then you probably settle for something you are at least pretty good at. I read an article recently called "Work Rules" by William Grieder (a prominent American journalist and economist) and he said something that punctuated this point for me. He wrote, “The inner narrative of one’s life often is embedded in one’s work, in the satisfying routines and sense of fulfillment, in the sheer pleasure of doing things well.” I think that is pretty true.

Taking Grieder's quote as being something pretty true, let's examine a few interesting scenarios:

* What if you are not that good at your job? You don't love it and you're not that good at it. You do it because you are stuck in a niche, and/or you need to work in order to live. Depressing, really.

* Would it be worse to love something, but not be very good at what you love? The thing you loved most you would not be able to derive satisfaction from in the way Grieder suggests. That would be pretty depressing also.

* Do you always love what you are good at? Maybe you are good at math, so you pursued it as a career, but you hate it. You would realize your talent was marketable, you were successful, you derived satisfaction in the workplace because you were successful, but you hated the work. I envision this being the case with some S.S. soldiers during World War II (or even some American soldiers now), or the person that flew the Enola Gay. Let's take the case of the Enola Gay pilot. Here the guy is, an esteemed and accomplished young military pilot, good at the job of flying, and thus being tasked to drop a bomb that decimated over 80,000 innocent people.[*]

[*]In these cases, it is easy to think that the person dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, or the S.S. soldiers, might have had some humanity. Maybe they thought, "I am good at being a soldier, but I HATE what I have to do." Sadly, many of these executioners were very willing and proud. Colonel Paul Tibbits, the American pilot of the Enola Gay, waved and smiled for cameras right before he took off to bomb Hiroshima. He had no regrets about what he did. In fact, he was quoted in 1975 as saying, "I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it, and have it work as perfectly as it did... I sleep clearly every night." In March 2005, he stated in an in interview, "If you give me the same circumstances, I'd do it again."...Add this asterisk section([*])to the list of depressing things.

So, again, I am at a loss. Any thoughts on these things, my dear readers? Are you all working in fields you love? If you are not, do you care that you are not? Or are you okay with just makin' the buck? Comments on these, or other issues are very welcome and helpful in our exploration of adulthood.

On Becoming Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Carl Jung, or a Dolphin Trainer: An Exploration of "What I Want to be When I Grow Up"

When I was a little girl I used to want to be a veterinarian. But not just any veterinarian, a veterinarian for big horses (inspired from my James Harriet books.) Then, I got over horses and decided I really wanted to be a dolphin trainer. Then, I wanted to work with tide pools and my mom suggested to me that I might want to be an "oceanographer." So, I was on the oceanographer kick for a while. Then, I decidedly pronounced that my passion was to be a journalist, and that is pretty much what I thought when I was 18 years old and entered college at the University of Maryland.

At some point along the way, after dropping out of UMD and being "existential" for a while, I took an Art and Feminism class at community college and decided I had to be a museum curator. I graduated with a degree in Arts Management, and went to work at an art auction house. I was on the track...I could almost taste my curatorial glory.

Now I am grant writer. A grant writer. Not a dolphin trainer, not a museum curator --but a grant writer.

Not that there is anything wrong with grant writers (especially because I get to use my writing skills to help a whole lot of people that need it.) But, if you had asked me 5 years ago if I could picture myself as a grant writer I would have said no way.

Interesting the way the fates lead you.

Is my experience normal? I mean, my friend Janelle, for example, always said she wanted to be a Supreme Court Justice, and low and behold she is a recent UCLA law grad, and is on the path that she had always envisioned for herself. I will not be surprised years down the line when she becomes a Justice.

My friend Michael always knew he wanted to pursue something science-oriented, and then at one point decided unequivocally that psychiatry was his calling. Low and behold now he is a psychiatrist working at Stanford. Not surprising at all. He is one smart and motivated kid.

Is it that some people just know? And how is the knowing that is associated with Janelle and her Supreme-Court-Justice-track any different from the knowing of my dolphin-trainer-track? I mean, I reallllllly wanted to be a dolphin trainer. Is it a matter of follow-through? Is it a matter of personality type? Perhaps Janelle just has the personality type that when she says she is going to do something, she means it, and she does it. Or is it a deeper passion? I mean, obviously, I can't even swim, so I couldn't have been all that passionate about being a dolphin trainer. But I did feel I was pretty passionate about being a journalist (I was a journalist at the age of 11, after all), and about being a museum curator. Maybe Janelle and Michael's passions are of a passion-level I can't even comprehend, because I have never felt?

Some of my friends might say that I have always wanted to be a writer. Now I am a writer -- kinda. A technical writer of grants, which really isn't the same creative fun as just being a "writer" in general. So, maybe I did kind of follow a dream, but it certainly wasn't intentional. I chalk my grant writing job up more to luck and fate than to passion or talent. (Though now that I have been working in it for a while, I am very passionate about the population I help. Maybe that is how passions arise? You experience something -- just like my experience with James Harriet books gave me a passion for animals -- and then you become invested.)

Now, I am in graduate school for writing. Is this sealing my fate? Am I now a "writer"? I am not convinced my path won't change again. It seems to change so frequently anyway.

How is it that people can be so sure of their path? And does this assurance result in a more content life? I mean, I feel anxious most days because I never know what I am going to do with my life exactly. Maybe Janelle and Michael have a kind of bliss because they know they have made it to the path they have always wanted.

I also often wonder how my path would have changed had I made some different decisions. What if my parents had not gotten divorced and I had not dropped out of UMD? I may actually have become a journalist. I definitely would not have moved back to California and gone to community college, and then I would not have moved to San Francisco, not have found a passion in art history, not have worked in the arts, not have met Brian, not have moved to San Diego, not have become a grant writer.

But all of those experiences evolved me in a really profound way. And ultimately, what I want from this life is to learn all the lessons I can and to evolve from every experience. So, while my professional[*] path may be a bit more twisty than Janelle or Michael's for example, I am happy that it has taken me to where I am. I just wonder when I will find my niche, and I really do yearn for that niche...

[*]I say 'professional' because I want to differentiate this from an 'emotional' path. I think that regardless of if you are a lawyer or a dolphin trainer, everyone has their own equally twisty and bumpy roads to contend with on their emotional paths.


Oh yeah, and I am still open to becoming a dolphin trainer.




[photo by familymagazinegroup.com]