When I grow up?

When I was nine or ten, my grandmother and uncle bought me a typewriter for my birthday. I loved it. I typed on it constantly. I was always a writer. I started in the second grade when I wrote an essay about our class zoo trip and it was so well-written that my teacher had me pose in front of the school for a picture. The details are hazy, but I remember it was printed in the newspaper. The picture not the essay.

When I was 11, I went to junior high school. I was in the 7th grade,and I wrote my first "novel," Footprints in the Sand, a love story. My friend Barbara Gross, the first Jewish person I ever met and became friends with, would read excerpts from it to me in our French class. She used her Harvey the Bald Eagle voice, and clamored every day for the next few pages. She wanted to know how Francesca and her boyfriend ended up. I don't remember his name, but I do remember Francesca.

I think people always told me that when I grew up I would be a teacher. "You are so good with children," they would say, but when I went to college, I didn't major in Education (not at first). I majored in English. I took writing classes and literature courses. I was exposed to Dante's Divine Comedy and Hemingway's writing, but I didn't know I could become a writer.

I think people told me when you grow up you will be a teacher because in my small world in South Philadelphia, women grew up to be mothers and housewives, and even the thought of going to college was unusual. We only knew women who had professional careers as nurses and teachers. We didn't know architects (I wanted to be one of them too) or executives or congresswomen.

This morning, I had an ephiphany, I always wanted to be a writer. Always.
The only problem is I thought you could only be a writer because you were talented. I thought you went to bed, and one morning, woke up and were James Joyce, but it really doesn't work that way. You have to write. You have to study writing. You have to read good writing, excellent writing, and copy it and inhale it and become it. Being talented helps, but you can cultivate your talent. You have to develop your writing.

I never grew up to be a teacher. I have my teaching certificate in Language Arts, but I never taught (not formally). I do work in a school. I have written about education.

Instead of feeling like I didn't become a teacher, I think I will focus on becoming a writer, a good writer, maybe even a great writer. I still have time.

What is your dream?
How are you going to pursue it?