Aspirations

It's an old question, probably older than I am, usually aimed at small children for the entertainment of adults: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And typical answers – at least, when I was a kid – were things like 'ballerina' and 'cop'. Not me. I wanted to be an astronaut, the first female astronaut. But I think even before I got to high school, the Russians sent a woman cosmonaut into orbit, so that didn't work out for me.

My next choice was to be an astronomer. To that end, I majored in math in college. I was incensed when I went to see a college counselor about something, and when he saw I was majoring in math, he asked, "Oh, do you want to teach?" And then, as it turned out, LIFE intruded, and I had to abandon that dream, too.

There was still one dream left, but I was so busy dealing with LIFE that this final dream became only a hobby. Chances are, it will serve its purpose of entertaining me through what's left of my life, but accomplish little else.

It seems almost cruel to ask kids what they want to be when, as adults dealing with LIFE, we know they have very little chance of fulfilling their dreams. When they look back through the decades and realize how paltry their life has actually been, that they spent it pushing papers, or brooms, or water leaks, rather than chasing crooks or dancing on their toes, will they feel anguish over dreams that never survived? Maybe that's why adults do it; because their see their own dreams withering away. Maybe the pain makes them do it.