I Can’t be a Rockette when I Grow Up

posted 17th August 2009    Written by: Andrea    CATEGORY: All Posts, Andrea, Job/Career/Work, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 1

(This week I posed a question to Andrea, Kendra, Robyn & Marisa- When you were small, what did you want to be when you grew up?  How has this played into your life?  And perhaps the more appropriate question for a Quarterlife Crisis: What do you want to be when you grow up? xoxo  Molly)

I am 25 and have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. Now, I have said this before and I’ll say it again: I really thought when I was little by the time I was 25 I would be a grown up.

Not so much.

My roommate Siobhan recently sent me this amazing YouTube video and it pretty much sums up how I feel about my life on a daily basis. I know there are other girls out there who feel the same way! I probably watch this video 5 times each and every day now. At least!

When it come down to it, I don’t think men and women living today in Generation Y can really classify themselves in one career field. It isn’t like when our parents were younger and they dreamed of becoming an Astronaut or Dentist or Teacher. People our age go through so many different types of careers and many people (myself included) have multiple jobs at one time.

What do I consider myself? Well, I’m a writer first and foremost. And even though I have not taken a dance class is over a year, I still consider myself a dancer. I knew how to dance before I knew how to read. It makes me sad to say that today I don’t dance as my career.

It is so ironic that my first performance, when I was 4, was to a song called “When I Grow Up.” From that point on, I was convinced I was destined to be a dancer. I am the only one in my family who has ever taken dance lessons. When I was 6, I was chosen out of many students at my studio to join the competition team and I stayed on that time until I graduated high school. Up until the age of 11, I thought I was going to be a dancer.  Then I found out there was a height requirement to become a Rockette. (I have not grown taller since I was 11 and I am just 4 1/2 inches shy of the 5’6’’ requirement to dance at Radio City…)

I then thought, “Okay, well if I can dance, then I could teach!” I even interviewed my dance teachers, who are like aunts to me, for my 6th grade Career Studies class.

Here and there I swayed from that path, but only for a few days. Once I thought I could maybe be an architect since I love unique design and buildings, but then I would remember how much I hate math and went back to my dance teacher dream.

It wasn’t until the end of high school that I had to really sit down and decide if my career would involve dance or not. Aka… I had to decide if I was going to go to college for dance or for something else. That something else was another passion of mine, something I had done equally as long: writing.

I ended up choosing the latter. Honestly, I did it because by the time I was 18 I knew I wasn’t as good or talented dancer as I once had been. When I was 6-10 yrs old I would like to think I was a very talented dancer for my age, but as I got older dance became a very commercialized activity and I realized my talent was nothing compared to others. It wasn’t fun anymore,  instead it was cutthroat and competitive.

I became a journalism major and subsequently graduated with an Honors degree in journalism, mass communication and marketing. During my 4 years in school, my brain ran through about a dozen different careers. These are some of them:

When the time came, I applied for jobs in Public Relations at a few theater companies and small more feature-y newspapers and magazines. No dice.

I actually ended up going to graduate school, living at home with my family and working at a non-profit that helps developmentally disabled individuals. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and I’m glad I decided to work in non-profit prior to any real-world corporate gig. (Most people I have found go the other way. They work in corporate America first, realize how much it sucks and then go work someplace that actually helps people.)

Lately my thoughts on career choice have been all over the place! Over the past 6 months I have thought about:

1. Traveling the world as a paid blogger
2. Teaching New Media at a medium-sized college or university
3. Opening a Bed & Breakfast
4. Starting my own new media consulting business (I am doing this one!)
5. Getting a corporate America desk job at a Social Media firm

Those are just five among many many other things. It’s not that I am not satisfied with my job right now, I just have this syndrome (which I acquired from my Dad) that nothing is ever good enough. I feel like I could be doing more with my life.

I look around at all those 25-year-old grown ups with families and houses and career and think… “When will I grow up? And what will I be?”

Will I travel the world or live overseas? Will I ever teach? Will I work in corporate America ever? I really don’t know. I may never know. But, I think that the majority of my life is going to spent trying to figure this out. My life job is going to be searching for my purpose on this earth… And I’m okay with that.

I’m okay with that as long as I am happy and calm that is!

Andrea Dancing

*The very last performance I ever did with my studio back in Buffalo was a 20 year Anniversary tribute to our instructors. I have danced with most of these girls in this picture for 20 years and this routine was a parody of the very first dance we ever performed…. “When I Grow Up”

Andrea (new) bio.


Bookmark and Share
Comments (0)

Leave a Reply

name*


email* (will not be published)


website


comments