When you’re young you tend to be excited to grow up. When you’re older you wish you were getting younger instead.

Birthdays can be fantastic or they can leave you feeling disappointed. They make you reminisce and think about past years and what your future is going to be like.

They make you well aware of the fact that one more year has passed you by.

Are you where you want to be?

Personally, I’m a little fatter, and a little colder than I would like to be.

Birthdays make me think about my family and how much I love them. And they make me think about my life and where I thought I would be right now.

Depending on what age I was when you asked me, I would have come back with a plethora of responses to the question – “What will you be when you’re 22 years old?”

My more common assumptions were:

Missionary/Pilot

Astronaut (I’d be the first one to discover proof of aliens AND set foot on another planet)

Superhero (I’d have the ability to fly)

Writer

Marine Biologist (Dolphins and the mysteries of the deep have always managed to astound me.)

Pilot (Who wouldn’t want to fly? There is something incredible about being up there and completely in control – and I’d come to grips with the fact that my latent superhero powers were unlikely to ever surface.)

Writer/Hermit

Marine Biologist (even though by this point I was afraid of deep water – I was determined until I realized I would have to take calculus)

Lois Lane (Why be an ordinary journalist when I could be one like Lois?)

Writer

Bookstore Owner (I would share my love of books and open up a world of possibilities to people who’d never discovered the magic they possess.)

Writer

During the ‘writer’ stages I would have said I’d have 13 books published under a delightfully clever pseudonym and be living somewhere in the stunning forests/mountain ranges of British Columbia by now.

No matter how old I was I always knew one thing for certain – I was going to make a difference to the world. Whether it was by helping impoverished families in Africa or writing books that could change lives, I was determined to become someone I would be proud of.

I don’t have any books published. I’m still working on the clever pseudonym. I’ve never been to Africa. 

Have I changed lives, made them better? I don’t know. Have I changed yours?

I am a writer. (I’ve got the business card to prove it.) Just not the kind that writes mind-blowing novels.

I’m not ready to give up on the rest of it. I’m past the point of predicting how it will turn out, obviously I’m not particularly skilled in that department. But whatever I do, whoever I become – I will be happy doing it.

Because if you’re not happy, genuinely happy – then what’s the point?