Diary Entry No. 1: Somewhere Along the Way, We Lost the Plot

From the time you are little, people are constantly asking the same question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I remember hearing that question as early as first grade. And honestly, I never really knew how to answer. Not in elementary school. Not in high school. Not even in college. At least, not in a way the adults around me would have considered acceptable.

Because if someone had truly asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I probably would have said, “I want to be like Paris Hilton.” Which, understandably, would have terrified my mother.

To her, that probably sounded like: late nights, paparazzi, and public meltdowns. But even as a child, that was never the part I admired. What I admired was influence.

I admired the way she could shape culture. The way girls copied her outfits, her phrases, her energy. Even at eight years old, I think I was trying to say, “I want to create something people connect to.” I did not know how to articulate that yet.

Around the same time, I was also completely obsessed with Bratz dolls and their television series. The girls in Bratz always had creative jobs. They worked in fashion, had their own magazine, and traveled together. They somehow balanced friendship, ambition, glamour, and fun all at once.

Maybe it was early-2000s propaganda, but every girl-centered movie back then made adulthood seem exciting. Women had beautiful apartments, creative careers, big personalities, messy love lives, and close friendships. Not to mention an iconic car.

Meanwhile, real adulthood looked more like: burnout, emails, student loans, and becoming a regular at your local pharmacy.

As a child, my dream version of adulthood was never really about becoming rich or famous. I just wanted freedom. I wanted to live in my own apartment, meet friends for drinks on weekends, work on creative projects that excite me, and build a life that felt emotionally fulfilling instead of performative.

I wanted a life that felt cinematic. Somewhere along the way, I think a lot of us lost the plot. Especially women.

Because little girls are often encouraged to dream creatively right up until the moment adulthood starts becoming “serious.” Then the conversation changes. What about stability? What about your future family? What about children? What about choosing a practical career? And slowly, many women began building their lives around survival rather than curiosity. That is essentially what I did.

When I was younger, I always imagined that adulthood would involve some form of creativity. I did not know exactly what form it would take, but I knew I wanted to create things, tell stories, and build something that felt meaningful.

At the same time, I have always genuinely loved helping people, especially young girls and women. That is part of what drew me toward teaching in the first place. It felt like a career where I could make a positive impact while building a stable and meaningful life.

And to be fair, there are parts of teaching that I still love. I love the children. I love helping people. I love knowing that I can make a difference during such an important stage of someone’s life.

But somewhere along the way, I realized that helping people and expressing myself creatively were never supposed to be competing goals. For years, I treated them like they were.

But over the past couple of years, I’ve also realized that just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean it fulfills you. Most days, I come home exhausted. My friends in education feel the same way. By the weekend, we’re so busy recovering from the week that there is little energy left to explore the parts of ourselves that exist outside of work.

And maybe that is part of adulthood, too. Realizing that the life you built for survival is not always the same life you would have built for yourself. That realization hit me hard sometime last year. Somewhere between responsibilities, routines, and practicality, I had lost touch with the parts of myself that once felt most alive.

Around that time, I kept finding myself revisiting the same question: what happened to all the things I once wanted to create?

Not because I thought I needed to quit my job or reinvent my life overnight. But because I realized I had spent years prioritizing practicality while quietly neglecting curiosity.

Suddenly, I started remembering that most of my childhood dreams were never really about specific careers. They were about creativity, freedom, curiosity, and building a life that felt meaningful. So this year, I finally decided to take the plunge.

Not because I think this blog will automatically change my life overnight. But because I think it would hurt me more to abandon myself for another year. Creating this blog is one way I’m trying to reconnect with the version of myself I imagined as a child.

Not the glamorous fantasy exactly, nor the celebrity version of it. But the version of myself that felt curious, creative, funny, and excited by life. The version of myself that believed adulthood would still contain imagination. With time, I think I am slowly becoming her again. Not through some transformation montage as you see in the movies.

But through smaller choices. Going out more, taking better care of myself, creating things again, and allowing myself to want more. I’m allowing myself to be seen creatively instead of hiding behind practicality all the time.

Maybe this is why I keep thinking about that childhood question lately: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Because I honestly do not think that question is supposed to stop once you become an adult. If anything, I think adulthood is when you should start asking it more seriously. And right now my answer is simply this: I want to become myself.

I want to become the version of myself that feels most honest. The version that is curious, creative, ambitious, and fully engaged with her own life, and not built around other people’s expectations. I think more people should revisit some of their childhood dreams, even in small ways.

It doesn’t have to become a career, nor does it have to be a passion that has to become profitable. Sometimes reconnecting with yourself can be as simple as returning to things that once made you feel alive.

Take the solo trip. Go back to school. Start the hobby. Buy the toy you were never allowed to have as a child. Honestly, I am 27 years old, and I still think about getting an American Girl doll. For my 24th birthday, I celebrated at the American Girl store because I loved it when I was younger. And you know what? I had so much fun.

I think people underestimate how healing it can feel to reconnect with younger versions of yourself instead of constantly trying to outgrow them. As I write this, I am sitting by a cafe window, and it is beautiful outside. 

I think I’m going to finish this article, walk to the park, and sit in the grass for a while simply because I can. Because when I was younger, freedom was one of the things I wanted most. And maybe these tiny moments count too.

Maybe becoming your dream girl is not about transforming into someone entirely different. Maybe it is just about finally permitting yourself to become the person you were always trying to be before the world convinced you to become realistic instead.

After all, most childhood dreams were never really about careers. They were about what made us happiest.