Where I always wanted to be, I never had to leave.

When I was little, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up. Usually the answer changed daily. In fact, one day, when i was about 5 years old. I marched down the stairs and announced as I got to the breakfast table "When I grow up, I want to be an Indian." It took my mom a few minutes to really explain how that wasn't going to work out for me and the next day I announced that I was going to be a fireman. I can still hear my mom's exasperated sigh and the "You know, sweetie..." that often came after it.

As I got a bit older, my mind still drifted down the road, but it was never really about a career. I looked at the older people around me and how they lived their lives. It was a lifestyle that I looked forward to, not a career.

It dawned on me today, when I caught the glint of my sparkly grey hairs in the mirror at work, and then my reflection in a store window on my way home. I am what I always wanted to be. Grown-up but still me.

Walking downtown, headphones on, grey hair with a Bad Brains hoodie, big girl job but plenty of ink in my skin, worn down stickers on my cane, always a backpack, never a purse, thirty-four going on twenty-one, smarter than I think, smarter because I think, mistakes behind me, mistakes ahead of me, all of them mine.

I'm where the 11 year old me wanted to be. This is a success that can't be measured in gross vs. net. It can't be taxed or rated. It can't be discounted or disqualified.

And it means the world to me, and only me. Then and now.

xo
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