First try to be a career. Be sure to pick one that makes your parents proud and gives them something to talk about at parties. “My son is going to be the president one day.” “He says he wants to be a scientist and save the environment.”
This is obviously what everyone meant when they asked you, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Find your “I’m 7 years old today” birthday badge fossilizing with dust under your bed at 8 years old. Cry because time is already running out. Better grow up quick.
Pick up a light obsession with origami. Join the chess club before other kids begin butchering interests into a cool pile and a weird one. Do a school play. And while you’re at it, adopt a British accent when performing because, your mom took you to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and you know what real acting is.
Learn to play the piano. Your teacher will be very old and slightly racist. She will look at your olive skin and decide brown means dirty.
She will assign you pieces to play. You will ignore them and learn what you like instead. Music will continue to bring you joy as long as you do this. Your parents will love it.
They will also struggle financially and fight, and because you do not understand the price difference between origami paper and a mortgage, you will let the origami go.
In middle school you will join a television broadcasting class. Being on camera is an adrenaline rush and you’ll unfortunately be a junkie the rest of your life.
Make a documentary. Comb through World War II footage and realize that the planet is a darker place than the movies. Quit playing make believe. Time to get serious.
Work at the mall folding clothes for Abercrombie and Fitch. Hate every second.
Dress up as Spiderman for children’s birthday parties. Don’t hate every second.
One day a scholarship will come in for film school in LA—which means your essay worked and maybe your English teacher was right. At the same time you will take your first dance class and it will feel like origami, chess, piano, and every other obsession combined.
You turn down the scholarship.
Your broadcasting teacher will call and be ‘very concerned.’ And one day you will come home to a circle of chairs and a family who thinks you’re throwing your life away as if you have picked up heroine and not hip-hop and ballet.
You cannot be a dancer, they will say, dance is not a career.
A popular girl in your senior oceanography class will casually remark that a dancer going pro is a “one in a million” chance. There is salt in the air. She will shrug as you open up kelp roots under a microscope, adding casually that she thinks you are that one.
You believe her.
You train. And live out of your car for a little before the transmission goes completely out. So when someone offers you their couch, take it. And when your first manager tells you to come to his office alone outside work hours to take photos, run.
Except you do not run.
This part was not in any of the job fairs or safety trainings. You will archive it away with the World War II footage, with the bodies, used and discarded by the hundreds in mass graves. There will be therapy for this later, but for now you are still choosing between food and gasoline.
An audition will come, this time dancing for a music artist you’ve actually heard of. You will make it to the final round, they will point a camera at you and it will still feel like purpose.
You do not get the job.
Another year passes, your parents still think you’re crazy but now you have your own room in an apartment. They will ask, “How much does this one pay?” whenever you book anything. Don’t mind them.
That same artist will call you back and you will finally be able to tell your parents a number they can nod their heads at.
You dance your heart out for the next four years and your parents come to see you perform once in that time. At a crowded dinner afterwards, your mom will tell you how she wishes she would have been more present, and it will be like finding the “I’m 7” birthday pin all over again. Time is blitzing us both by.
The job is perfect. Except it isn’t. And in spite of how you’re supposed to feel when you reach your dreams, you cannot help but think something has been lost along the way. You have a career, but are still trying to figure out what it means to be human. And it dawns on you that the two might not actually be the same thing.
You leave LA, a boyfriend, a religion, a life; and write poetry in Bali with a wild group of friends. This repeats until you miss dance and your ex enough to text him at 5AM. He has happily moved on.
So you say something crazy like, “I could meet the love of my life tomorrow.”
You do.
He loves your poetry and dancing, but never asks you how much they make you or what you want to be. Why would he want to change you? He already sees you as enough.
But he lives in London and a novel virus shuts down the world so you go on a break and try to see other people.
On a date, a man in expensive clothes asks you about your poetry. He wants to know the point of putting all these words down on paper. The food tastes like bile. He asks you, “But seriously, what do you plan to do? What do you really want to be?”
You say human and there is no second date.
You marry the European you met in Bali.
You write and take on side jobs. You dance but this time it does not cost you your innocence or define who you are. You stumble, but this time there are shining faces that help you regain your feet. You play chess and fold paper, make films, and buy an out of tune piano from someone’s garage. You dirty your hands with music and forgiveness. And somehow learn how to love your parents and your life; but not before you mourn your ideas about both.
Your grandmother turns ninety. Her hands feel like tissue paper but her laughter feels like light. She tells you, “Life is short. Or maybe in my case very long. But either way you should do your best to enjoy it and be happy.” She says she’s never seen a flower that didn’t make her smile. You bring her roses. You gift yourself some too. You fill your days with so much beauty, the whole time putting words to paper.
One day someone notices and says, “Oh you must be a writer!” Another says, “He’s a dancer.” “No I’ve seen him on film.”
And you will smile politely like you did on that tragic first date. Only this time you are not disappointed. This time, you have friends and family who have seen you, and more importantly you have learned how to see yourself.
You have climbed mountains and learned the value is in the climbing.
You have met strangers and know this to only be the prelude to new friends.
You have outlived your own dreams of definition.
And though you have traveled far, you find that you have never been beyond the arms of love.
MY FAV PIECE OF YOUR WRITING
Goodness. I couldn't take my eyes away. So glad you exist. Happiest of birthdays <3