What did you want to be when you grew up? How close are you to it?
When I was little I remembering wanting to be a hotel maid, because I loved how my bed looked when it was properly made up.
I also remember at some point wanting to be a ballerina, and when I got to age 8 and started understanding that I didn't have the body for ballet, when we were separated into groups to hand out our costumes for the final recital, and how I was alone or almost alone in my L-XL category of leotard.
I wanted to be an astronaut, but I had glasses, and my brother told me that you had to have perfect vision.
I think things started to get more concrete when I was 12 and wanted to be a photographer. I looked it up in career guide books from my guidance counselor, and learned that it was a competitive field. I pursued it pretty single-mindedly, or in some aspect, since then. I went to photo camp when I was 14, and then worked to take photography classes in high school.
Sometimes its hard because I see the other beautiful photographs out there, and I get daunted by their equipment, or how my photographs are never hi-tech or low-tech enough, but somewhere in the middle.
I think that it's nice to realize now that I'm older that you don't have to be one single thing when you grow up, but it's okay to have shifting identities, and it's okay to have multiple ones as well. It's harder for me to have favorites the older I get; it's hard to identify what those are because I have shifting moods. What do I want to be when I grow up?
I think I can be a teacher, a photographer, a feminist, a mother, a partner, an activist, and have that all be part of who I am.
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