When I Grow Up I'm Going To...

gracie920101

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We all had something in mind when we were little. I was going to be an a doctor, an architect, or an English teacher - at least that's what evolved over my formative years.

Well, life has a tendency to throw curves just to make sure you're paying attention and I was never able to attend college. And I did spend many years in the medical profession but I have to say that an ophthalmic technician is a vast ocean of difference salary-wise from a doctor.

Now I drive a desk in a small communications company which was NEVER on the radar. I also currently live in a state that I'd never even given a thought about visiting.

Who knew, right?

What about you? Are you living your hopes and dreams or did you do a 180 somewhere along the way?
 
Yeah...no one as a kid grows up and says, "I wanna sell human resource services for a living!"

I have encouraged my kids to chase their dreams, but to chase them for real, not talk about it, do it, go after it like nothing else is more important...

Both are in positions to do jobs and make good money at things they LOVE.

If I could I'd love to be a writer or an actor...
 
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I never said "When I grow up, I'm going to work in logistics!" when I was a kid.

I wanted to be a doctor...or a lawyer...or a writer...or a Princess. Not necessarily in that order.

:)
 
I wanted to do something that wasn't so endlessly mundane as the trajectory that reality sent me on.
 
I always planned on being a middle aged suburban chick with dirty, dirty thoughts and a glitter thread.

Actually, I held a job I loved for 19 years. I had to quit; never in a million years did I think I'd become a fulltime caregiver.
 
I wanted to be a nurse.
Never did I dream I'd be Farawyn.

Kidding. I think I wanted to be a vet. Something with animals. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to fly. Not in a plane. Just fly.
 
Denny Growing.

Well I never actually grew up but I'm much older than I thought I'd ever be. Must be this clean living and karma.
The karma part is confusing but my wife and I truly believe in it, whatever it is. We've done some stupid things and played some adult games that close friends and family know nothing about. We have two groups of close friends. The second group thinks we are perverts. The others think we are angels. In reality we are both and karma saved our asses many times.

So while I was growing up I sort of took some art and business classes. Mr. Disney was my hero and I wanted to be a cartoonist, or some sort of artist. In middle and high school I drew female nudes for lunch money. The teachers frowned on that.
I also wanted to see the USA, just like Dina Shore sang as she drove her Chevy to the levy. Who knew I'd live in Levy county Florida for 23 years. Damned karma!

Not being born rich and not having a chance to go to college, my plan was to hitch my car to an RV and go west young man. There I'd discover Disneyland and show Walt how great I could draw. Of course soon drawing was done with computers.

I didn't even have a girlfriend and didn't need one. Not gay, but my male friends and I discovered drag racing, stock car racing, motorcycle racing, and street racing was more fun than girls. But cars don't have tits!

Then along came a country girl. Somehow she got pregnant, I used my basic education to get an office job in a factory. The factory moved in five years but NY didn't appeal to me.
I became a salesman, something I was not good at. I ended up working in a very large factory. I hated being inside so when the factory offered me a chance to drive an 18-wheeler I jumped at it.

So my high school education and my art turned into looking at the USA through a windshield. But even that dream of seeing the USA fizzled. I was a company driver. I saw parts of the mid-west over and over until I retired at 55.

Who'da dreamed I'd still be married to that country bumpkin from Minnesota and be so happy? The dream turned to living in a mansion near the ocean in Florida. At least I found a Disney World! But the mansion was a double wide mobile home on five acres in the boonies. The nearest ocean was the Gulf of Mexico some 30 miles away.

We lived and loved there for 23 years, in our mansion. I had garages and sheds filled with antique cars and street rods. I had a sexy woman that loved me. Then we got old. Suddenly we were back in the mid-west in the middle of winter.

58 years with my first girlfriend and still in love. If I never grow up I'll still be happy! When I grow up I'm going to bypass the bad decisions and do more things I only dreamed about. Life is short, follow your dreams. We drove down that road in Inglis, Fl. where the Elvis movie was partially filmed. Now we're walkin down Memory Lane ........ literally! Karma or Angels still watch over me.
 
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Denny

Denny, that is lovely. Thank you.
Thanks darlin. We've been taking turns spilling our guts on here since we've moved. Things have happened and we have so much to share.
We've gotten to the point where we no longer care what others think. Too many big babies on this forum just bitching about non-sexual things.

Most of our messages lately has been thru PM's because we do tell too much.:heart:
 
Well I never actually grew up but I'm much older than I thought I'd ever be. Must be this clean living and karma.
The karma part is confusing but my wife and I truly believe in it, whatever it is. We've done some stupid things and played some adult games that close friends and family know nothing about. We have two groups of close friends. The second group thinks we are perverts. The others think we are angels. In reality we are both and karma saved our asses many times.

So while I was growing up I sort of took some art and business classes. Mr. Disney was my hero and I wanted to be a cartoonist, or some sort of artist. In middle and high school I drew female nudes for lunch money. The teachers frowned on that.
I also wanted to see the USA, just like Dina Shore sang as she drove her Chevy to the levy. Who knew I'd live in Levy county Florida for 23 years. Damned karma!

Not being born rich and not having a chance to go to college, my plan was to hitch my car to an RV and go west young man. There I'd discover Disneyland and show Walt how great I could draw. Of course soon drawing was done with computers.

I didn't even have a girlfriend and didn't need one. Not gay, but my male friends and I discovered drag racing, stock car racing, motorcycle racing, and street racing was more fun than girls. But cars don't have tits!

Then along came a country girl. Somehow she got pregnant, I used my basic education to get an office job in a factory. The factory moved in five years but NY didn't appeal to me.
I became a salesman, something I was not good at. I ended up working in a very large factory. I hated being inside so when the factory offered me a chance to drive an 18-wheeler I jumped at it.

So my high school education and my art turned into looking at the USA through a windshield. But even that dream of seeing the USA fizzled. I was a company driver. I saw parts of the mid-west over and over until I retired at 55.

Who'da dreamed I'd still be married to that country bumpkin from Minnesota and be so happy? The dream turned to living in a mansion near the ocean in Florida. At least I found a Disney World! But the mansion was a double wide mobile home on five acres in the boonies. The nearest ocean was the Gulf of Mexico some 30 miles away.

We lived and loved there for 23 years, in our mansion. I had garages and sheds filled with antique cars and street rods. I had a sexy woman that loved me. Then we got old. Suddenly we were back in the mid-west in the middle of winter.

58 years with my first girlfriend and still in love. If I never grow up I'll still be happy! When I grow up I'm going to bypass the bad decisions and do more things I only dreamed about. Life is short, follow your dreams. We drove down that road in Inglis, Fl. where the Elvis movie was partially filmed. Now we're walkin down Memory Lane ........ literally! Karma or Angels still watch over me.

No road us ever too rough when you have the right one riding shotgun.


Oh and when I grow up I'm going to be a middle aged sex symbol.:D
 
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Denny

No road us ever too rough when you have the right one riding shotgun.
This could be true. As for us, we've been down some mighty rough roads and climbed some steep mountains.
With every bump and every hill we learn something about life.
My wife has rode shotgun on a small Honda and an old Harley, in a VW Beetle, a dozen other small cars, pick up trucks and 18 wheeler's. Even on a D-8 and a bucket loader. She's fallen off, got knocked off, and lived on beans and government cheese. She's had more surgeries than many could survive and still smiles and covers my ass.

We grow a little every day. Tomorrow I go in for bone cancer X-rays, hoping they find nothing but bones. Soon I go in for prostrate cancer treatments and she's getting some heart Xrays. Karma and our angels will get us through it and we hope to grow up a little more.
Not living your original dream is not the end of the world. Push shopping carts for Walmart.... do something and another chance for a dream will come.
 
I wanted to be a police officer growing up. They had rules I could understand. They dealt with bad people. They got respect. But I am glad I didn't follow that path. I would have hated it!

A little more grown up I wanted to be an actress. But I was so so shy! I did make an almighty effort to get a solid part in our school's first ever school musical and got through it with a mixture of terror and delight. I think I was half decent. But the shyness was too strong then to do any more acting. I am still a fairly quiet person, but I do have a major exhibtionist streak. I like to show off and now I can in kinky circles instead.

I have slowly worked my way up a career ladder that I chose, jumping off before I get promoted to a level where I will fall flat on my face. I mostly like what I do, which is great. For a long time, home life was so very stressful, so I had work as my safe place to be, and to be more like myself. Maybe one day I will have a radical career change, but for now, it's good.
 
Is it still legit to answer while in your 30's? :rolleyes:

When I grow up, I want to be a traveling photographer.
 
I thought Huck and Tom had it about right. I got close. Close enough, anyway.:)
 
I actually am doing what I dreamed of when I was a kid. Well I had two, one was to be a firefighter, and the other is what I'm currently doing.

But now that career is coming to a close in a few years, so I need to figure out what I really want to be when I grow up.
 
"Life is what happens while you're making other plans" - John Lennon, IIRC...

In the long run I think I've been really lucky career-wise. I went into university just assuming I'd end up in academia, because that was my family background and it's what nerds without social skills do, right?

But I drifted into industry (followed the money with a sponsor willing to support my doctorate), ended up in a toxic workplace, eventually pushed back when my boss wanted me to do something unethical, and got fired while I was still young enough to make a career change.

I have a lot of friends in academia and I'm so, so glad I didn't end up there. People moving from one country to another every few years, wherever they can find a grant, and trying to make family relationships work with that. Ugly academic politics. Bleah. I think I'd have been miserable.

And industry... ugh. If I hadn't been fired I'd probably have stayed much longer than I should've, because I'm not good with change. I was out of work for a year and it really really sucked, but I ended up finding something that's interesting, fulfilling, and ethical. I can argue with my bosses and they don't fire me, sometimes they even come around to my way of thinking. Previous job really makes me appreciate the good things here.

Along the way I picked up some people skills. It's not my strength and it fatigues me, but last year I managed a team of three for several months and it all went pretty well and they all said nice things about me. Officially I'm an "assistant director", I even have business cards for it.

And I can talk to my supervisor about being autistic, and she's cool with me working from home when I need quiet time, because she trusts me to get the job done.

So I'm beginning to feel like maybe I'm some sort of grown-up? One who still has plenty to learn and manages to screw up now and then, but much more than I was at twenty or thirty.

(I did want to be a cop when I was little, or perhaps a ballet dancer, but I don't think those would've worked out!)
 
I seriously just wanted to be a 9-5 office worker (big dreams as a child :rolleyes:). I didn't have any specific dreams I just wanted to leave home and be far far away from where I grew up. Never intended to get married or have children. Hm, I'm a married housewife and I'm still on the fence about the demon spawn thing.
 
When I was a kid I wanted to be something different almost every day. Usually more man-ish jobs than woman-ish, though.

Now I'm a translator, interpreter and teacher. Kinda just ended up doing this. I'm a pretty good teacher, but because I hate being the center of attention, teaching often makes me very tired. For the same reason I tend to skip the interepretation gigs when possible and rather teach than interpret.

I'm thinking about what I'm gonna be when I grow up. I'm thinking about going back to school, just because I think studying is the only thing I do really, really well.
 
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When I grow up, I want to have the time and money to help as many in need as I can find. I want them to know they matter and that simply because of circumstances in their lives, there is always hope and to never give up.
 
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