“When I grow up, I want to be a vet.” – 7-year-old me.
“I’m gonna be a singer.” – 13-year-old me.
“I think I just want to be a wife and have kids.” – 19-year-old me.
It’s funny how time and circumstances change things. The things we wanted (or thought we wanted) are no longer plausible. When I began my senior year of college with no significant other and no prospect of romance in sight, I realized my ambitions of wifehood and motherhood might have to be put on hold for a bit. Years, really. And when this happens, you adjust. You have to.
The first few years I worked full-time at camp, guests would often ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” … only it took on the form of, “So, what do you want to do after this?”. I knew what they were really getting at. No one actually works at camp as a professional career, so what do you really want to do with your life?
The longer I stayed at camp, the more I realized that it was becoming a career. I was a “Camping Professional”, all while I was waiting for the whole wife thing to come to fruition. But when you don’t get married until you’re 30, you realize that your aspirations have to change a bit. And then, when you can’t get pregnant, they continue to have to change. You’re a working woman now. A true professional. An executive. A leader. You go back to school and get your Master’s. You value success in a bit of a different way. You even buy new clothes to match the new felt identity.
It’s funny how all of those dreams, even as a child, get tangled up in identity. Being a vet, a singer, a wife, a mom…. or a doctor, a teacher, a realtor, a pastor, an accountant. We “are” these things. It’s what we do, and it so easily becomes who we are. It is how we attempt to define ourselves to others, how we attempt to know others upon our first meeting: “Nice to meet you- what do you do?” It’s where we often find value and purpose. We gauge the successfulness of our humanity based on what our jobs are…or aren’t.
And when things don’t pan out the way we think they might, sometimes an abrupt shift of expectation is necessary. You find out that your foster care application didn’t get lost and you bring home a 6-day old baby a few hours later…in an instant, you’re a mom. A pandemic happens and working moms are suddenly stay-at-home elementary school teachers. Or parents who happily send their kids away to school in August are staring into a new world of homeschool and a variety of curriculums. Or people who have devoted their lives to their work are jobless, fiddling their thumbs, and not sure which direction is the next best move. Or people who are normally in an office surrounded by co-workers are now working remotely, in a kind of lonely solitude.
As I have processed through this identity crisis in my own life, I have realized I am not alone in the storm. So many of us are reeling with uncertainty and confusion, so many of us are facing realities that, six months ago, we could have never dreamed of. I am watching my husband go to work every day while I take care of a baby. A wife and a mom. It’s what I wanted… wasn’t it?
But somewhere along the way, things changed. They had to. And they will continue to morph. That’s just how life works.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s a question I asked my nephews, just the other day. I expected them to reply much as I had as a kid… and they did. But if my 36-year-old self were to be asked that question? I’d like to answer much differently.
When I consider being, I want to be someone who knows Jesus and lives my life in a way that reflects that, no matter what I do. Someone who seeks His interests, not my own.
Whether I’m a camping professional, or unemployed, whether I’m a wife, or a mom. When I change the answer to this question, answering the “What I do” question becomes a lot less significant. What I do matters significantly less than how I do it, or who I am in the process of doing it. When I answer the question this way, it doesn’t matter if my career changes 100 times. It doesn’t matter if I never get paid to work another day in my life again. It doesn’t matter if I never use the diploma I just received in the mail. It doesn’t matter if I’m a biological mom or a foster mom or single or married.
When we answer the “what do you want to be” question this way, there doesn’t have to be an identity crisis when life abruptly hands us something new. Because, we know who we are… or, at least, who we are becoming.
Maybe you’re like me… a bit disoriented from sudden life changes, attempting to process through your worth and your value, considering what your purpose is. Perhaps life, even before COVID-19, hasn’t turned out the way you thought it would. Perhaps you’re still single. Perhaps your kids are doing things that break your heart. Perhaps you can’t have kids. Perhaps you’ve recently lost someone you love. Perhaps your health is failing. Perhaps you’re collapsing under the weight of what decision you must make.
None of these things have much to do with what we do, but who we are in the wake of tragedy, loss, celebration, promotion, confusion… that matters.
Maybe the question needs to shift into “Who do you want to be?” What kind of person, when you grow up, do you want to be? Occupation aside… what kind of human are you going to be? Kind? Generous? Thoughtful? Selfless? Quick to assume? Judgmental? Patient? Prideful? Hateful? Bitter? Unforgiving? Forgiving? Believing that you’re better than… more qualified… more necessary? Someone who listens? Someone who loves, no strings attached?
I know the person I want to be. Hopefully, it’s the person I have been becoming over the years… as a student, a single lady, a camp employee… as a wife, a foster mom, a laid off employee. These things teach me along the way, but they never encompass everything I am or want to be.
And I know I can’t be that person without first knowing the One who embodies all the traits I long for. I can’t be that person without spending time with Him.
This current season will end. I may not be unemployed forever. I may not even be a mom forever (foster care angst). Right now feels a bit like eternity, because it’s all we can see. But, it’ll change. Somehow, in some way.
What kind of person will you be when it does?
What kind of people are we becoming? When we look back in 10 years at this season, will be proud of the actions and words, how we spent our time, the causes we stood for, the people we cared about?
And so I have to ask… Who do you want to be? And how are you becoming that person?