What do I want to be when I grow up?

Last week, over the course of three days, I had two separate speech therapists tell me on two separate occasions that I should be a speech therapist.

Having both the practice manager and the practice director at my son's clinic telling me in all seriousness that I should have been a therapist struck me as funny. My college roommate was a communication sciences and disorders major and I never once considered it for myself.

It got me to thinking.

Of course. Do you know me at all? All I ever do is think and think and think.

We've been talking a lot about careers and our futures lately, because my husband is coming to a place where he needs to decide if we're just going to throw in the towel on his career, coast until retirement and settle here, or go all out to become a commander and possibly a General.

I've been thinking a lot about the fact that his career could be over in seven years. If ever there was a time for me to start over, it's now.

I seriously have thought about becoming a teacher. I've been thinking and thinking about what and who I really want to be in my forties. I could be anything I wanted.

Inspired by Patrick's current career search I went back to square one. I thought about all those tests I took when I was eighteen to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. Particularly the Myers-Briggs personality test.

I remembered that back then I was an INFJ. A counselor. Which is great and all but back then I wasn't going to let some test tell me what I should do.

But I decided to go ahead and take as many online versions of the Myers-Briggs test as I could last week. And they all came out the same. INFJ.

And what careers match with an INFJ?

-Special education teacher
-Alcohol and drug addiction counselor
-Diversity manager / trainer
-Speech / language pathologist
-Career counselor
-Therapist
-Director of religious education
-Editor / art director
-Writer

Huh.

You know, with the right eduction, the right tools, I could happily do any of those things. But few of them really fit with what I want in life. And only one of those words up there represents my dream.

Since I was a little kid, I thought becoming a writer was about as possible as becoming a movie star or traveling to the moon. But people do it.

I've realized that if something horrible were to happen to my husband, lifting geographical constraints, even in this economy there are plenty of writer/editor jobs out there that would be perfect for me. I could support my family.

For now, it is time to start working toward my dreams. It's time to start working on my writing like a job. It's time to stop making excuses become I'm scared of failure.

It's time to make time to do what I really want. It's time to grow up.