What do I want to Be?

It may be a little bit ridiculous but at well over a half  century, I’m still trying to decide what I want to be “when I grow up.” Remember, growing older is mandatory but growing up is optional.  And I’m not at all sure I have gotten there yet!

Naturally I went through the usual kid ambitions such as a ballerina, an opera singer, a flight attendant, a nurse and of course my big rodeo queen and competing cowgirl phase. Even in the midst of them I sort of realized those were about as unrealistic and fleeting as my crew of “former fancies” (crushes and quasi-heroes) in the teen years. I was always a tomboy and a ‘tough little girl’ though, even in my most prissy and girly moments. 

In a lot of ways I tried to be ‘grown up’ from my mid teens on. A part of that I can now attribute to the Elder Daughter Effect which was well documented in a fairly recent book by a couple of wise women. Besides this inclination, I did have a lot of adult concerns, responsibilities and burdens to carry while parts of my development were blocked, denied and greatly delayed.  I was often in a semi-limbo of being fifteen going on forty five. Yet once broken free, there is no making up for lost time.

This was even more true of my youngest brother. He grew to biological manhood in an even more odd and warped situation and finally at thirty had to make a huge leap into adult life. I feel great compassion for him. In some ways his early death from an aneurysm seems almost a strange kind of suicide by neglect/default/denial. It is very sad. The middle brother fared somewhat better. As a Scorpio he had a fierce independent streak and basically went his own way  making little effort to ‘go along’ or fit in as Alex and I had mistakenly done, but he too bears scars. We did not have an easy youth. 

I used to joke about becoming a misanthrope and an eccentric old lady. I think I may have at least come close to accomplishing that, but that is not the serious sort of what-to-be I am speaking of. I tried to be a good mother and wife but as a ‘home maker’ I was probably not the best or my best. I had a very uncertain role model in that. My mother tried and excelled in a few areas but also fell far short in many. Had I been around my grandmothers more, especially the maternal grandmother, I might have absorbed some valuable lessons.

I tried always to be able to pay my way by being employed and keep the bills satisfied. In that I succeeded for the most part but the ‘career’ aspect never gelled. It was always just ‘a job’ by which my pay check was bought—I cannot really say earned although I tried generally to do well. Conscience would not allow less.

Certain things came easily to me and I thus never learned how to work-- I mean to focus, struggle, study and apply great effort. Oh, I can do manual labor and do so very adequately but ‘studying’ as one connects with academic efforts, managing and entrepreneurship are all really alien to me. Mental work was the odd part—some things I could do with only moderate effort while others were completely alien and incomprehensible to me. They still are, really.  If I did not ‘get it’ quickly I simply shoved things aside or detoured around them.

I always thought of myself as ‘creative’ and fancied I was good with words. My grades in such subjects were normally good to excellent and I scored high on verbal skills, vocabulary, and related aptitudes in many tests. I also had good spatial sense and manual dexterity. Other than hobbies, though, how have I applied such skills? Not gainfully, at least, sad to say.

The paid work I did so often involved my weakest traits: salesmanship, taking charge, convincing, leading, and talking/teaching. Although I eventually learned enough to get by, I was definitely no rock star! Had I been better or tried harder in math and science, I might have made a decent scientist, engineer or at least technician but that was not to be. Instead I was in Human Resources and did a somewhat mediocre job though I faked it well enough most of the time. My main specialty was in “classification” which was helping supervisors write job descriptions and then set the correct pay rate for that work. I was a fast study for picking up lingo and a good enough wordsmith to make things sound like whatever I wanted them to seem. It almost always worked.

Over time I grew very disillusioned and learned that the most frequent reward for doing  a volume of work and at least seeming to perform well was most frequently simply more work. Those who sloughed off and coasted along seemed to fare better, even more likely to be promoted (kicked upstairs?). When I finally had an opportunity to cut and run without literally losing my shirt, I did so and have never regretted that choice.  Had I stayed in civil service a bit longer, I’d have a few more dollars a month in my retirement but at what cost?

In my second career I became the paid or semi-professional writer I always wanted to be. It has been a good experience although not terribly lucrative. If I depended on those earnings I would be homeless and hungry! Still the extra dollars do help and it is an ago boost. I readily admit I am not a great writer or perhaps even a good one. I write genre fiction because I am a good story teller and can weave or spin a tale with no great strain. I suspect it is in my blood and genes from a long line of Celtic ancestors, mainly Welsh and Irish, both races fine bards and tale-tellers.

I never aspire to write literary fiction. Honestly, I do not generally like it, rarely read it, and find most of it depressing! In my opinion, there is more than enough disfunctionality, tragedy, darkness and gloom in real life that I see no reason to add to the overburden. Instead I lean toward hyperbole and wordiness, I ramble and yes, I call purple a favorite color for a reason! Melodrama and overkill I may allow and even a few too-precious metaphors and similes, especially when I go to poetry. But there are few literary pretensions such as references to Greek philosophers or any other ‘classic’ influences.

My other skills go to stringing beads and bending wire, shaping and shining stones and putting scraps of fabric together in what I hope are visually pleasing patterns for quilts, garments or fabric art of various kinds. So, I am still trying to create useful beauty and not sure whether the usefulness or the beauty dominate.

But what to be, ultimately and in the finest sense? Goodness, I have no clue. For now I can be an eccentric (or crazy) old dog lady who crafts stories, takes or draws pictures, puts bits and pieces together and does the same with words for rhymes and essays—like this one. Perhaps I can share a little bit of what I hope is wisdom gained in three quarters of a century of life—surviving if not truly thriving, and making many errors which I would spare others from if it were possible.  Do as I say, not as I did!  I can also be more independent than I ever was and really not care a hang what anyone thinks of me except a very few chosen folk whose regard and respect I value. That in itself is very liberating.  Maybe I should be content just to be me, grown up or not!