1) The original name was an uninspired, pressure-induced choice imposed on me by the Blogger software,
2) only two people in the world actually refer to me as Kimmy instead of Kim,
3) I can't help but think of DJ's annoying friend on Full House, and
4) I don't want to limit this blog to only cooking topics.
During my sabbatical (a nice way of saying "too tired to write") I thought about what I would want to write about if it wasn't limited to cooking. I think it only appropriate, therefore, to expound upon career choices.
As a grown-up type person, I like to ask little kids what they want to be when they grow up. However, if I'm being really honest, I'm usually asking because I don't know how to keep the conversation going. Once we've established their age, grade in school (if they go to school), and favorite color, I've got nothin'. I much prefer the pre-verbal stage where a rousing game of peekaboo will get you through the social niceties.
It is interesting, though, to think about how the responses to this question change over time. The evolution of my own responses looks something like this:
Age 4 - artist
Age 10 - architect (because it involved art and using rulers)
Age 12 - lawyer (because I watched a lot of divorce court growing up)
Age 16 - teacher (who doesn't want summers off?)
Age 18 - English teacher (get paid to read? heck yeah!)
Age 18.5 - hmmm...I have no patience for teaching, gotta think about this
Age 18.75 - toyed with majoring in English, history, and anthropology; all involve teaching...gotta keep thinking
Age 18.9 - psychology is interesting, but I don't want to get a PhD
Age 19 - accountant
I'll admit, I kind of fell into accounting by default. I remember being in the middle of my freshman year in college and talking to my mom about the difficulty of picking out a major that had an actual job (that wasn't teaching) attached to it at the end. Now, before I continue, you have to leave your sensitivity hat at the door or just click away, because I'm going to turn up the stereo...type, stereotype (ba dum ching). I am half-Chinese, my mother is not Chinese, but at the time had been married to a Chinese man for 20 years (they're still married BTW); a little bit of the culture rubs off on you over time. She subtle-y suggested I look into accounting because I was pretty good with numbers. My dad, and most of my Asian friends, will freely admit that some stereotypes are often (but not always) true. The 5 acceptable careers is one of those truisms. You can be anything you want to be when you grown up; any type of doctor, lawyer, engineer, architect, or accountant, that is. As long as you fall into one of these categories, your parents will be happy and feel like they've done their job in raising you correctly.
I had no desire to be a doctor, and thought I was too introverted to become an attorney (I didn't know about corporate law back then). As much as I love the Discovery Channel, I've never excelled in the sciences so I passed on engineering. Not sure why I passed on architecture. It can't be because it sounded boring compared to accounting. So, I enrolled in Accounting 101 and got through the quarter relatively unscathed. At that point, I figured I might as well keep going and just didn't stop.
Throughout it all, from the time I was 12 to forever, I've wanted to be a writer. My dream was to publish a book by the time I was 16. After that benchmark came and went, my dream was to publish a book before I was 20 and become an editor at a publishing house. When that didn't happen, I just gave up. Actually, giving up would have been somewhat more palatable when the reality is that I simply just forgot. Forgot to dream, forgot to try, forgot to practice something that I enjoyed doing so much. I've always been a practical person, and the practical thing to do at the time was to focus on my studies, take the right classes, graduate, and get a job. There simply wasn't time or room in my head for dreaming.
Thinking about this many years later makes me terribly sad. I'm not saying I regret my career choice, because I don't, but I regret not leaving room in my life for dreaming. Even now I struggle with this concept, because life doesn't stop or pause to give you room for joy; bills need to be paid, emergencies arise, and people let you down. I get so focused on responding to crises that I often feel like there's no room for such nonsense as dreams.
This hollow feeling is one of the reasons I started this blog. I hold no illusions that writing will bring me fame or glory, or that I will ever be a published author beyond what I post here, but it doesn't mean I shouldn't do it. People don't stop painting because their works aren't hanging in a museum, and they don't stop sewing just because their creations are showcased in school plays instead of New York fashion week. My wonderful husband often reminds me that happiness is a choice. Likewise, happiness or joy won't be handed to us, we have to seek it out or take it for ourselves. I don't mean for this to sound self-serving, but rather as a basic survival instinct. If we don't take the time to engage in those activities that we take joy in, whether it's writing, running in marathons, painting, or cooking, what's left? I don't want to be 70 and realize I have spent the last 50 years acting no better than a robot programmed to perform the same task day-in and day-out.
It's this premise of seeking out joy that is the basis for the new title of this blog, "Kim's Life in Progess", because that's what it is. I'm not perfect, and most of the time I'm making it (life) up as I go along; but I am actively taking steps to appreciate that which is good in my life and to try and enjoy some of it along the way. I will still post about my cooking adventures, but will let this blog be a creative outlet away from the debits and credits of the day-to-day. Even though I've already settled on a career, I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I just know that I don't want to be a robot...unless I can have bionic eyes, that would be kinda cool.
Take care,
Kim
