I want to be...

On a weekly basis, my aunt tells me that she doesn't envy where I am at this point of my life.  That being in your twenties is hard because you are expected to be an adult all of a sudden and you are trying to figure out who exactly you are.

Yesterday, before class, a lady in her mid-thirties, was telling a few of us about how she was discussing the problems with art schools and why she didn't like the BFA program that she was in.  She didn't mean that she didn't want to be in the program, just that it wasn't the same as it was before.  The teacher took it upon herself to email that lady's academic adviser, saying that the lady felt as if she was pressured into the BFA program and she wasn't happy about it, when that wasn't what she meant at all.

She was irate that the teacher would do something like that.  She was in her thirties! She knew what she wanted and she wasn't afraid to ask for it!   Someone commented that he wished he had her problem because he doesn't know what he wants out of life.  He is 23. 

The point is, I don't know what I want out of life or who I want to be.  I haven't gone through enough things to have the experience to make those decisions.  BUT I don't want to be that 25 year old with an identity crisis, so I sat down and came up with a few things that I want to define who I will be.

• Photographer.  I have known that I am a photographer since I was seventeen.  The moment you realize you look at something differently than other people reveals a lot.  When I would see pictures, I would look at the aesthetics before the subject, like the color, composition, etc.  When I turned seventeen, I bought a Sony Cybershot camera with my birthday money and I was OBSESSED with trying to make artistic pictures liked the ones that I saw all over the internet.   I didn't want to take silly snapshots of family life like normal people did.  My pictures were awful, but everyone is awful at their passion when they first start to pursue it.  

    The two pictures above were taken during that time (2009).

• Passionate.  I don't know what it is that I want to be passionate about, besides photography, but I want there to be some cause that defines who I am.  I don't want it to be something cliche, like breast cancer, but something that personally affects me.  Breast cancer might one day personally affect me and it almost did this summer, but currently, I don't have any emotional ties to the cause.  What I'm looking for is is a cause that tugs at my heart whenever I think about it.  Sure I feel bad for kids in Africa and I will probably give my money to them because I'm a sucker for charities, but I'm not passionate for them like I want to be about something...
• Mother. Kids love me.  I get that from my mommy.  I don't know what I would do if I wasn't able to have my own babies.  That just doesn't seem like an option.  I don't want a lot of kids, but I do want at least two.  There is just something about molding a child into the person who you think they should be that appeals to me.  Obviously they should be able to make their own choices, within reason, but being there to help them make those choices is something that I really want to experience.
• Vocal.  I don't mean this in the "You can never shut me up" way, but more of, "I want to be able to say what I think" way.  At school, we are graded on participation because the school can't kick you out for not attending class.  It's weird that you would pay thousands of dollars to be educated and not go to class, but that's not the point.  We are expected to have opinions on readings and voice those opinions during our discussions.  I have a really hard time with this.  Forming opinions is exceptionally difficult for me to do and I have no idea why.  Is it just me or do other people have a hard time being opinionated too?  I want to have my own opinions and be able to voice them when necessary. 
• Encouraging. I'm definitely an observer.  I'm a people watcher.  I'm a sign reader.  I'm a listener.  I love listening to people and I do my best to help them whenever I can.  To the point where I've been asked if I ever considered being a therapist.  I want to continue to be encouraging, and allow that gift to grow.  By the way, this is an open invitation for you to talk to me whenever you someone to listen.  

 There are probably a million things that I want to be, but these five are what are on my mind tonight. Maybe I'll keep thinking about this, maybe I won't.  I do encourage you to think about what type of person you want to be and when you do, don't let yourself believe that you can't do something.  Dream big! As Ben Franklin once said "you can do anything you set your mind to."

So, who do you want to be?