When I grow up…

by Minnow + Co.

When I was little and someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, they got an answer that was probably a lot more than they expected.  It wasn’t an occupation, it was a colossal laundry list of all of the things I wanted to do, be, accomplish.  The interchange went a little something like this:

Well meaning adult: “So, Ellen, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

Me: “I want to be a veterinarian, a poet, a lawyer, an actress, an astronaut, a writer and I want to have a horse.  And two dogs.  And a cat.”

Well meaning adult: “Oh my, well, um, that’s certainly… ambitious.  Ah, well, good luck with all that.”

I gave up the veterinarian bit when I learned that it wasn’t all petting cute animals, and that I would actually be required to do fairly disgusting things to animals.  No, thanks.  And while I had a brief and torrid love affair with poetry in my adolescence, somewhere along the line, my ability to produce poems that didn’t make me wretch at the atrocious, cliched nonsense kind of petered out.  Lawyer?  Well, I can certainly argue my way around most situations, but when it comes to evincing passion for an argument I don’t actually believe in, I’m pretty well screwed.  Actress?  Hahahahahahaha….  We’ll just leave it at that.  Astronaut?  Uhhhh, I think that was just something I felt like I should throw in to impress adults.  Do I have a horse?  Nope.  Do I still want to?  Only on my really, really optimistic days do I actually allow myself to entertain the idea that I’m responsible enough to care for a horse.  Then I jump back to reality and realize that’s a HILARIOUS concept.  Dogs?  As soon as I’m finished cleaning up the pee and poop from the nifty human being S and I created, I’ll think about it.  Cat?  Success!  Check plus, times three.  (For the record, three cats was NOT my idea.  Everyone who knows S should pointedly ask him the next time they see him how we came to have three cats.)

So, for those not keeping track, that leaves us with “a writer”.

Of all the things I said I wanted to be all those years ago, a writer is the one thing I still want to be able to honestly list next to my name.   All my life, writing got me through.  It has always been the one thing I could count on to stay afloat, academically, professionally, and emotionally.  And I’ve always thought that perhaps there was a book, lurking somewhere in the deepest, darkest corner of my being, just waiting for the proper moment to make its way out.  But I’ve never gotten the sense that “HEY.  I should write a book about X.”  So instead, I kept journals for years, and then, when mommyhood got in the way of journaling, I started a blog.  Yep, hopped on that bandwagon.  But while I was really very dedicated about posting for oh, about a week, it’s been sort of a struggle to be a good girl and post regularly.  It’s one of my most familiar self destructive tendencies.  That which I want to do most, I will doggedly resist.

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of food blogs and cookbooks for work.  (I’ve also been reading the blogs of some really sensational writers in my spare time, ones that don’t make me drool all over myself with their glorious recipes and tempting food pictures.)  The other night, I was able to meet Cheryl Sternman Rule, author of a lovely blog (5 Second Rule), who just published her first cookbook, Ripe.  She’s on a book tour for Ripe, which is, by the way, GORGEOUS.  Ms. Rule was speaking about how writing turned into cooking turned into blogging turned into writing a cookbook.

The one most interesting question someone (not me) posed to her was about how regularly she posts, now that she’s on book tour.  The question was along the lines of “What if you just don’t feel like posting one day, what do you do then?”  Her reply was so simple, and yet so powerful.  “If I don’t feel like it, I don’t write.”  What a sharp contrast to my diligent self scolding in regard to my spotty blog posting…

It made me realize that if I really do want to be a writer, it has to be for the love of writing, and not to make a name for myself, prove a point, or appease/impress other people.    So today, I’m writing.  Because I feel like it.  I also potted tomato plants today, but I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t do any more gardening tomorrow, so at least there’s that.

And if a well meaning adult asked me today what I want to be now that I’m all grown up?

A loving wife, a doting mother,  a steadfast friend, a consummate professional, a baker of delectable delicacies, and yes, a writer.

But now, instead of a horse, I want chickens.  And bees.