from creepy carnie to mother teresa...

My college roommate is coming into town next week. I will call her this for this story because over my lifetime she’s been and will continue to be many things to me, but for the purpose of this story, this is where we were in life--college. And we spent hours in between classes, activities, socializing, sororities, etc. talking about being grown-ups. We pranced around in lives our parents provided us and fantasized about being strong, independent, fabulous women who did glamorous things every day of our lives. I say all of this as I write to you from my office, while snacking on animal crackers, because I have chosen to forgo my lunch break in favor of writing about the other woman I thought I would grow up to be. That fabulous woman probably wouldn’t have spent last night studying for a test while a 9 year-old sat beside her and made a menu of concession stand items she would provide and at what price if someday, some day, she could just be lucky enough to have her own. That’s how it starts, right? One day you’re dreaming of owning a concession stand with funnel cakes you can charge 4 tickets for and the next you realize you don’t want to be some creepy carnie; you would rather rule the world or perhaps become Mother Teresa.

Sure, everyone tells you that you can be anything you want to be, “the sky’s the limit!” Try telling that to the guy sitting on the street corner in Miami with a ballpoint pen stuck through his earlobe (true character, I have actually seen this man and I have eye-witnesses to back that up) and he will probably yell more explicitives your way. The great thing about the Bic Man is that he doesn’t blame anyone else. He doesn’t speak to you or ask for money. He just wants everyone within yelling distance to know that he is, in fact, a self-proclaimed “piece of s***.” I don’t know what he wanted to be when he grew up, but I can tell you what he is—memorable. Bic Man made an impression on me. It’s been nine years and he still crosses my mind every time I pick up a plain white Bic ballpoint. The great thing about being a dreamer like me is that you not only have dreams regarding your own life; you often have dreams for others as well. I hope that Bic Man realized one day that he wasn’t a piece of s***, cleaned himself up a little and went to work at Miami Ink (I said I had dreams people, I reserve the unrealistic ones for myself).

These unrealistic dreams consisted of me becoming a top cardiac surgeon. You know, only after years of traveling to exotic lands alone and really “finding myself.” There might be someone in the history of time that has done that. Maybe. But I feel pretty confident saying that said person had no true friends and no children. Here’s the thing, as much as I talked about being this single, independent woman and never having children, I’ve realized the past few years that I can be independent and still allow someone else into my life. And while I’m not ready for kids anytime soon, I do want them eventually (my mother does a little dance in her chair upon reading this). That traveling the world dream--it’s restricted by the amount of vacation time I am allowed by the company I work for and I haven’t been doing it alone, but I have been going places and I have certainly “found myself”. Becoming a cardiac surgeon--one day I woke up—not physically, because I had pulled an all-nighter studying for my Organic final—and realized that 13 more years of school and putting my life on hold to dedicate myself to it, wasn’t a dream worth pursuing. Not for me anyway.

So unrealistic dreams aside, 4 years ago, I graduated college and walked into my reality. My life is decidedly hectic and overwhelming. I always have something to do, I work a lot, I have a hobby in scuba diving that I can’t believe I never thought of before 2005, I bake things and people actually pay me for it, I’ve seen amazing places, done amazing things, met amazing people and I have fabulous friends and family that I’m convinced I will never be able to spend enough time with. So you know what I’ve realized? The best dreams I’ve ever had turned out to be the reality. Don’t worry, I still have crazy unrealistic dreams. If you ever find me on ESPN teaching my favorite athletes to cook, you’ll know one of them has come true.

In the meantime, I’m content knowing that my college roommate and I have become those strong, independent, fabulous women we hoped we would be. Maybe it wasn’t the journey we thought we would take, and maybe what we do everyday wouldn’t be considered glamorous, but it matters. I can’t think of anything I would rather wish for people, especially Bic Man, than to hope that you realize what you do and who you are matters.