WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

When I was a kid I was never really certain what to answer to that question. Depending on the last time a person asked me that question and what I had seen or done since, the answer could have been anything from a doctor - that was after I’d had two high school summers of a National Science Foundation grant to be in a program at a cancer research lab - to an English teacher or Librarian – perhaps because I love to read, and because I first majored in English in college. I wound up in banking for about twenty years, but gladly retired from that. 

Today I saw Dame Judy Dench, the actress I most admire, in a quick video on line. In looking back, I think I’d like to have been an actress. I can imagine how lovely it is to get paid for doing something like that, and as well as that.  I’m sure it ain’t all beer and skittles, but it must be most rewarding. I’ve trodden (and trod and treaded) the boards a few times. In the fifth grade I was thrilled to be the orchid (I got to dress in my favorite purple) in an Easter play about flowers, the star of which was the lily: “they toil not, neither do they spin” and all that.  I did a few turns in high school too, and enjoyed it immensely. I suppose, like many of us, I could say I’ve always been an actress, being calm, polite, and equable when I really wanted to curse and scream bloody murder or lash out and smack someone. But yes, add Actress to my list of woulda-wannabe’s. 

I’d also liked to have been an Interior Decorator. My Mother’s home was always tasteful, and I’m sure I inherited from her a good sense of what goes with what, and what goes where.  I wasn’t really aware of Interior Decoration as a profession until long after I’d been in the business world. Too bad! But I have acted as what they now call a Stylist on several occasions, helping friends and relatives arrange the furniture and pictures they already own for a better effect.  One of my Sister Chicks, for whom I made some decorating suggestions, said I should start doing this for fun and profit here in Sun City.  Yeah, we’ll see.

Once a co-worker and I did a bit of dreaming about a shop we’d love to have – one where we’d have had all the tools and supplies we could ever need to dream up and sell wonderful craft projects. In order to keep our creative juices flowing we’d have done only one or two of any item.  Ribbons and papers and fabrics and flowers and yarns and paints… Oh! We were way ahead of Martha Stewart.  Now I look at all the beautiful things available on line, on etsy.com for example, and I’d love to have made so many of them.  Websites like Esty are like on-line craft museums. 

For many years I was a wannabe retiree – and now I’m here. This is the best occupation of all.