Let's Be Unrealistic.

Time has a funny way of making you feel too young for tomorrow and too old to relive yesterday.

I mean, growing up, we all had an idea of what we wanted to be right?

Me, I wanted to be a singer like P!NK and a horse jockey (good enough to make it, and win the Kentucky Derby), a veterinarian, and a firefighter. My mom will probably read this and shake her head, thinking;

"She never said she wanted to be a firefighter"

That's because that thought lasted about a month - until I realized I couldn't pick up my younger brother let alone pull a fully grown man out of a burning building.

But I remember one day, at a family reunion, someone asked me what I wanted to be.

I looked up at them, big smile on my face because I was so happy they had thought to ask... took a deep breath and listed every job on the planet that had everything to do with adventure and animals, and nothing to do with being girly or math.

After I had finally lost my breath, and gained a crowd, everybody looked at 7-year-old me and laughed.

There is no way she will be able to do all of that... kids these days! Big dreamers!

I was crushed, and nothing short of lost. Eventually I found out I was too tall to be a jockey (hahahaha) and being a veterinarian does in fact involve some numbers and math... and let's just say I'm no singer like P!NK.

I gave up and let it slide.

I always had that thought though, what on earth was I going to do when I grew up?

I envied the people who had their fates chosen for them - the people who found who they were through events in their lives that threw them into an adventure - a calling almost that would help them not only find who they were, but help others in similar scenarios who were just as lost.

We're all doing this thing called life for the first time (that we know of) so why not do it together?

Once it came time to pick something to study for college, I was once again tossed into the whirlpool of confusion. What on Earth was I going to do with my life for the next few years?

Literally a week before the deadline, I chose Convergence Journalism. Yes, I chose to become the vulture - the one who swirls around and captures the best and worst moments of people's lives - and share those moments with the rest of the world. Not because I really wanted to, but because I really couldn't find anything else that didn't involve math (which, jokes on me - it did) and wasn't going to take seven years to get a degree in.

Yet - I was still lost. I was reporting about all these wonderful people who knew who they were; who used the best or worst moments of their lives to create something to help the rest of the world. Ask me what I was doing then, and I would have shrugged and said,

I have no idea what I want.

The only time I say that now, is when I have to pick what's for dinner or what to watch on Netflix.

I wanted what these people had, I envied them for what they had that I was missing. I was still that seven-year-old little girl, sitting in her Nana's living room, watching everyone around her giggle at all the things she wanted to accomplish in her short 100 years on this Earth.

Too scared to find something, too scared not to.

While all the positions were being filled by the people around her.

So, I watched. I listened. I waited oh so patiently and found nothing.

I met people who lost their children, and people who lost their spouses. I met people who won marathons and achieved world records.

I met people who created world-wide initiatives and people who thrived in every environment.

I met famous people, I met the shadows with voices. Everywhere I turned, there was a person, with a story and a purpose. It was frustrating, seeing the smiles, the tears, the motivation and history on the faces of each of these individuals I have ingrained in my mind.

I was proud to be the one to share their stories - but still jealous that I had yet to find my own.

Then one day, my professor walked into the lecture hall. Her brows tightly wound, her hands full of books and lectures, her eyes fixed on the class. She walked straight to her desk and plopped everything in her arms on top of it with a loud THUD and turned to her students in the class.

"I am about to tell you a secret about this field of work."

We all listened, knowing several of our classmates had just dropped out of the program, and waiting to hear if this was a lecture of disappointment from our professor.

Instead, she softened, smiled and walked to the center of the front of the room.

"Journalism gives you the ability to become a professional in the topic you write about. You cannot write about a topic, without knowing it inside out, upside down and backwards. Each one of you, is a professional in the topics you have written about."

I'm sure the rest of what she was was obviously important, but this one fragment of what she said clung to me, and helped me realize I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

It took me forever to fiigure it out, but I realized I was doing exactly what I said I would do as a child. I was dipping my toes in every aspect of the world I set out to experience.

Along the way, I received quite a bit of bumps and bruises, but that's all a part of the adventure. I found a way to do exactly what I said I would as a child... still waiting for math-less days, my very own Seabiscuit to ride in a race and my singing voice so I can duet with P!NK - but other than that, I've done alright for a '93 baby.

I'm not finished with my own story - as it's obviously still being written (you can check my future Wiki page for updates one day) but the fuel for my adventure is the people I meet.

The experiences they have endured, the possibilities they can achieve with the right help.

In a shorter version of the entire story I just suckered you into reading;

Don't let people tell you who you are or what you should be. The only thing you should want to be is yourself - whoever that beautiful person may be. If people don't like it - then let's be unrealistic together

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Thank you to Canadian Dave Atkinson, and his children's book 'Wereduck' for inspiring this message - and for letting me interview you while you were walking out the door for a story.

You matter, you are enough and you are beautiful the way you are