I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was in elementary school. My teachers always praised my writing and would send notes to my parents to “never let her stop writing!” When my mom was gossiping with my aunts, to get me out of grown folks business, she would send me to my room with a writing prompt:

“Write a story about a girl taking her first train ride.”
“Write about the rain.”
“Write how you felt on your birthday.”

I knew I wanted a career that allowed me to write for a living. In high school, when I expressed this to teachers and other adults, they persuaded me against it:

“You won’t make any money. You’re really good with computers, so why not computer science?”
“You’re really good in biology, why don’t you major in that? Or nursing?”

Don’t be a starving artist, child!

The adults around me were well-meaning. I went to school in a low-income neighborhood, so my teachers were focused on making sure all students that performed well in the maths and sciences chose a STEM major, whether they liked it or not. To add to it, my graduating class was entering college during the Great Recession, so they were trying to make damn sure we could find a job upon leaving college.

I majored in the health/medical field first. I couldn’t handled the idea of dealing with diseases and illness, so I switched to computer science. Then I combined them both and tried health information. I enjoyed some of the classes in each major, but I felt meh about it all. Eventually, I took a semester off and never went back; I focused on working because financial responsibilities don’t care if you haven’t sorted your life out.

The status quo is usually you get a job, working your way up the ladder until it’s time to retire. But I didn’t do that. I worked my way up the ladder in one industry, realized I felt unfulfilled. I switched industries only to realize I felt the same way. It wasn’t the industry, it was the jobs.

I took a couple of career/personality tests, one offered at an old job and one at a local university; each of them giving me similar results. At the time I ignored them because I felt it was too late to change careers.

While in therapy, I was told to reflect on what I currently value and the things I did that brought me joy when I was a child/teen. I remembered how happy I was creating stories as a child. I was reminded of the blog I had on Xanga and how excited I was to document my thoughts and share my opinions.

I decided to challenge myself to write more. I intended on this journey being something private, I would just write as often as possible in one of the many journals I have lying around. But remembered something an internet cousin said: don’t be afraid to be seen trying. So I decided to create a blog and share this process here in front of the judgmental amalgamation known as the internet (insert nervous laughter).

Could writing be my next career? I would love that for me. Even if writing isn’t written in the stars for me, my next career will be something I enjoy. But I love writing, so I’m gonna zig-zag down this path and see what happens. The hardest and scariest part of this is trying to convince others that I am capable of doing the work. The way I see it: if I could spend years in careers that didn’t fulfill me and get great results and gain a good reputation, imagine me doing work that brings me joy!

So tell me: what does your career path look like? Did you get it right the first time or did you have to change course?