Squashed

When I was about 9 or 10 I wanted to be a private eye detective. I loved mysteries, and thought it would be super fun to solve them for a living. Then a lady from my church informed me that all private eye detectives really do is spy on people to see if they're cheating on their husbands and wives. (Who tells a 10 year old that?) Well, that didn't sound like fun, so I changed my dream.

Fast forward to high school, when I decided I'd like to be a teacher. My best friend responded to this idea, "Don't you have to be, like, good with kids to be a teacher?" Which was odd, since I've always been good with kids. Or so I thought. I started to question that. So I kept thinking.

And then I decided I wanted to work for Hasbro and make games. I'd made up countless board games as a kid, and thought that would be an awesome career. And my friend's dad said to me, disdain dripping from his voice, "So you want to make board games for a living?" Was it really such a meaningless career choice? I reconsidered.

Ultimately, I found something I love. It's creative, so the board game mentality has come into it. It's creating educational materials, so it's related to teaching. It has nothing to do with mysteries, but I still love reading them in my free time.

But that doesn't mean I don't have other dreams. Like writing a book, for instance. Maybe a mystery someday. And I've been realizing that I'm kind of closed off about my dreams now. I don't like to share them with people because they might get squashed, just like my dreams of being a detective, teaching, and making board games.

It's amazing how three sentences, years apart and years ago, can inform my life today. It really makes me consider the words I speak to people - and how if I don't speak with kindness, I might leave the same kind of scars and squash other people.