The Paths (I Wish) I Could Have Taken

I've been feeling really burned out on teaching and graduate work lately, and by lately, I mean the past several years. In my heart I still want to be a professor, but sometimes I think about what my life could have been like if I'd become something different.

When I was a kid, I thought I could do anything and be anyone. I didn't think about all the reasons I couldn't. I just had these dreams and believed that I could make them come true someday. I have to admit that one of my childhood fantasies was to be Cinderella:

But I wouldn't dance in glass slippers, because that would, you know, hurt. And I'd want a Prince Charming who was just a little bit smarter too. I mean, I wouldn't want a guy who'd set out to find me and decide he's going to marry the girl who has the same shoe size as me. No. I'd want a Prince Charming who'd decide he's going to marry the girl who has the same face as me. (Unless, of course, I really do have an evil doppelganger out there who is plotting to take over my life. I'm pretty sure I saw her buying french fries the other day and I swear she was WATCHING me...) But I digress.

Now that I'm older, I don't want to be Cinderella anymore, but there are other things that I might have liked to do instead. For example, I became a workaholic at age five. One of my favorite pastimes as a kid was cleaning and organizing my room. (I think the "nerd" gene must have multiplied in me or something.) So I think it would have been cool to become a doctor, because the nature of the medical profession would pretty much require that I be a workaholic anyway.

And I admire doctors for their dedication to helping people and saving lives. I think that anyone who goes through the long, arduous process of becoming a doctor must really be passionate about the medical field and making a difference.

I'd be known as the doctor who developed the cure for hiccups, or the doctor who proved that you really CAN lose weight by eating pizza and not exercising. The only thing is I'm terrified of blood. I can't even watch horror movies without covering my eyes and shrieking, "AAAAAHHHH! Is it over? Is it -- AHHHH!! Why do more people keep going into the basement if none of them ever come back up? And OH NO! They're opening the door and AHHHHH!!! Where'd that guy get a chainsaw?"

It also would have been cool to be a dancer. I've watched professional dancers who moved with complete and utter joy on their faces, as if the only place they ever wanted to be was on stage.

The only thing is I'm not very graceful. I'd probably mess up one of the dance moves and then bump into one of the other dancers, and start some kind of dancing domino effect. And then the shrieking would probably start up again. And maybe the other dancers would get so frustrated that they'd toss me off the stage, and I'd fall into the laps of people in the audience, get up, and then fall again. Only this time I'd land on members of the orchestra and possibly break their instruments, and then people would REALLY start shrieking, and....

Yeah. I don't think I could maintain the level of concentration required to be a dancer. Not for that long, anyway.

I've also had this fantasy of playing in a rock band. I like the idea of putting my stories to music and performing them for people and watching them dance to my songs. I think it'd be fun to perform with other members of the band and let the music just fill me up.

But I have no musical talent whatsoever. Dogs howl when I start singing. And I can play a couple instruments, yet the only songs I can play without messing up are "Chopsticks" and "Hot Cross Buns". And those aren't exactly dance tunes.

The one dream I've had that's never changed (and probably never will) is to be a writer. Even if I never get published, I'm still going to keep writing, because I can't imagine a life without writing. It's the one goal in my life that I've never questioned. When I write, in a way I can live out my dreams because I can become any person I want to be, go wherever I want to go, and meet new and interesting people. I can create this whole other life for myself where I don't have the urge to yell at anyone in public because they were rude or inconsiderate, where I can find a way to address the problems that come up without feeling so lost and scared sometimes, and where I can just be happy.

How about you? When you think about the path that you're on right now, is there any path that you sometimes wish you could have taken instead?