05/06/00 -- When I grow up...

Is it time to put away childish things?

I 'm not obsessing.  Let me just get that out right now.   I'm just questioning.  Looking at my life: where it is, and where I'd like it to be.  And I'm wondering...

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a lot of things.  I wanted to be a doctor, an actress, a veterinarian, a rock star, a lawyer.  I wanted to be a lot of things that little kids want to be when they grow up because they seem cool.   In the 80s, when GLOW was on, I decided I wanted to be a wrestler.

GLOW was pretty cool.  My sister and I would sit there on Saturday mornings/afternoons and watch it.  She'd want to be Hollywood, or Vine, or one of the other pretty little thin ones.  My options, having been a chunky kid (after about second or third grade) was to be Mountain Fiji or Matilda the Hun (I think that was her name).  I didn't have the option of being a petite little wrestler chick.

I probably don't have the option of being petite now, either, but in the back of my head, since I started watching wrestling again, I've had that nagging memory.  That I want to be a wrestler memory.

If nothing else, it's prompted me to do what I should've been doing for a long time.  It's prompted me to go out to the Y and exercise, to try and get into shape (a shape other than the one I'm in).  Well, there were a lot of things that prompted me to do it, but this child inside of me nagging with it's When I grow up rant was part of it.

So I've been trying to walk on the treadmill for 20-30 minutes in the morning before I get ready for work.  And I've been working my arms three nights a week, and my legs two nights a week.  And every time I pick up a dumbbell, or get onto the treadmill or an exercise bike I wonder...

Is it enough?  Can I manage to undo the mindset I've had for so long?  Can I escape the "exercise is something to be avoided at all costs" frame of mind that I somehow got a hold of sometime between elementary school and jr. high?  Can I turn everything around and lose enough weight to be healthy? Do I have what it takes?  Do I want it badly enough?

I'm trying to be practical about the rest.

And, at the same time, I think about writing.  About wanting to be a writer.  About the first time I said, "I want to be a writer when I grow up!"  And I think about what it's going to take to get me there.  And I wonder ...

Do I want it badly enough?  Do I have what it takes?

I must have something.  Clarion said, "Yes."  Even though none of the BigNameEditors who've seen my stuff have said the same thing.  But do I have enough?

And for both, I wonder if I have the drive.  If I have enough motivation.  If I want it badly enough to make a childish dream one of my grown-up realities.

I wonder if it's time to put away my childish dreams and fantasies and just work in the RealWorld as a tech writer and a consultant.  If it's time for me to Grow Up.