February Posting Meme, part 3

[darchildre]

shadaras asked about things child-me wanted to be when I grew up.

When I was very very small, I was a hard-core dinosaur kid and I told everybody I wanted to be a paleontologist. I also considered being an entomologist, because bugs are also super cool. (And also because bugs very much bother my sister Megan and we had a difficult and adversarial relationship growing up.) I don't think I was interested in making new discoveries - I just wanted to know as much information about those topics as I possibly could.

Later, by middle/high school, when you have to write all those "what do you want to be when you grow up" essays, I wanted to be a singer, specifically on Broadway. This vague idea persisted into college - I was a vocal performance major my freshman year. I am a good singer and I enjoy it very much, but I definitely don't have the chops to be a professional. Or the personality, for that matter. I didn't want to be famous or to see my name in lights or whatever. I just wanted to sing.

I also, pretty persistently, wanted to be magical. I picked up odd shiny things and kept them just in case. I was weird about doorways and mirrors because you never know. I talked to animals and trees and various other natural phenomena because it couldn't hurt - might as well start cultivating good relationships. I was a weird, witchy, mystic kid whose friends used to have me pray over their tests for them because my prayers were somehow more effective.

And now I am 36 and I work in a library (where I can find as much information as I want on anything) and I sing in a community choir (which I am much more suited to) and I am a weird mystic pagan who still talks to birds and is cautious around mirrors. So I have mostly achieved my childhood goals.

I mean, I'm still working on becoming an actual necromancer or a Deep One, but I figure those are life-long-learning kind of endeavors.

Comments

[out_there]

So I have mostly achieved my childhood goals.

That is rather lovely!

[sfred]

They sound like good fulfilments of your childhood goals :-)

[katherine]

What fantastic description!

[schneefink]

This is really not my area of specialty, but I would think that becoming a necromancer or a Deep One would require quite different areas of study - which one are you concentrating on at the moment? ^^

[darchildre]

Becoming a Deep One is more a matter of chance, I suppose. My mother's people were part of the Portuguese diaspora that came to New England in the 1930s - some of those "swarthy" and non-WASPy foreigners who so terrified Mr Lovecraft - so basically I have Innsmouth blood and just have to wait to see if I grow gills. Fingers crossed.

Necromancy is my retirement plan, in case becoming a fish person doesn't work out.

[silveradept]

That definitely sounds like achieving your goals. I think I'm still trying to be more magical than I am, but it's a good goal to have.

[polarisnorth]

I was also a very smol dinosaur enthusiast who told everyone that I wanted to be a paleontologist!

[corvidology]

That's fabulous! So few of us can claim to have met our ambitions from childhood.