When you are a teenager, you are just beginning to think about what direction you may want to take in life. You are surrounded by friends, school crushes and social scenes. You have prospects of college and entering the real world for the first time. You create big dreams without worrying about fulfilling them because your life is so carefree. You think your future will magically fall into place for you. When I was a teenager, I had a dream about becoming a fashion designer, setting up shop in London and marrying a rock star. My social life was consumed by wanting to follow the boys in the band. Any guy who could play an instrument was my type of guy and I wanted to be the girl who sat on the stage and watched them play. I wanted to be part of that lifestyle. Not in the band, just with the band.
When I got out of high school, I went to work. Going back to school didn’t seem like an option to me until later on when I was tired of what I was doing and tried to pursue my dream of fashion again. Two quarters into majoring in Fashion, I realized the industry wasn’t for me. It was catty and competitive, full of snobbish, judgmental people who didn’t seem to care who they knocked down along the way. I couldn’t compete. I decided to continue with my pursuit of furthering my education, but changed my major to International Business and graduated with my AAS.
As I reflect on my teenage dreams, I know that fashion was too fast-paced for me. I would never make it in the industry without being trampled (albeit by haute couture heels). And did I really want to be the wife of a musician who traveled all of the time, doing who-knows-what when they were who-knows-where?
My life is hardly as glamorous as I had thought it would be in my teens. I now work for a small but growing electronics distributor in its accounting/collections department. During my school days numbers were the enemy. I was a word person. Numbers are now my life. This job has its ups and downs—as any job does—but my paycheck allows me to pay bills and have some spending money. And though he rocks in his own right, the man I hope to spend the rest of my life with has never picked up an instrument unless it was found in a garage meant to work on a car. My taste in music has changed. I still like to rock—just not as hard. I appreciate all that fashion has taught me. However I am no longer driven to seek out the most up-and-coming trends nor do I have subscriptions to every high fashion magazine in publication. I have my own sense of style and it seems to be working for me.
The picture I had painted years ago hasn’t gone to waste. I can appreciate the little things in life now rather than exist in thoughts of what would only become unattainable wants. I have learned to value the gifts the present gives me. With each new day comes new experiences and from them I am piecing together what I hope my future will continue to be; living happily ever after.
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