The Things I Thought I’d Grow Into

When I was five, I wanted to be a vet — specifically the kind who worked with monkeys and chimpanzees, because apparently I was already drawn to emotionally expressive creatures who couldn’t always say what they needed out loud. I didn’t have the language for any of that yet; I just knew I wanted to take care of something small and wild and complicated.

Then I went through a phase where I wanted to be a hairstylist, which is objectively hilarious now because my adult hair skills begin and end with a flat iron or a top bun that’s basically the feminine version of a man bun. Five‑year‑old me imagined precision cuts and glamorous blowouts; adult me is just trying to make sure the bun doesn’t list to one side like a sinking ship.

Later on, I swung in a completely different direction and decided I wanted to be a forensic scientist — which, honestly, tracks. I’ve always had this strange love for crime documentaries and shows like Criminal Minds, this pull toward understanding what sits beneath the surface. Even my career phases were trying to tell me I was built to notice things other people miss.

Underneath it all, I think I was trying to grow into someone who felt safe.

And the more I look back, the more I see that all of these dreams — the vet phase, the hairstylist phase, the forensic phase — were versions of the same instinct. I wanted to understand things deeply. I wanted to help in ways that mattered. I wanted to make sense of the mess, whether it was tangled fur, tangled hair, or tangled human behavior. I didn’t grow up to do any of those jobs exactly, but the thread running through them never left. It just shifted into something steadier, something that fits who I am now.

And maybe that’s the real thing I grew into — someone who can hold all those versions of myself without needing any of them to be the final answer.