Roads Not Taken, Part IV (Plus Happy Birthday Shout-out to Eli)

Just to finish up some of those colorful, parachutical thoughts for future reference, here's a few more roads not taken that I thought of this morning at 3am, while I was tossing and turning in my insomaniacal glory:

1) Therapist (again, one of those people-oriented professions, and something I think i'd be good at. Although I don't know how much of other people's pain I could take day in and day out.)

2) Writer (yeah, i know this is mostly a pipe dream, at least as far as doing it full time professionally. But a girl can dream, and I might as well put this down and be official about it. Same with Artist.)

3) Editor (a midwife for books! Again, requires dealing with people as well as lots of reading and writing and I think I'd be good at it.)

4) Event coordinator (related to that whole "Wedding Planner" thing, but I could do more than just weddings. In fact it'd be pretty fun to do all kinds of events, from birthdays to anniversaries to holiday parties to retreats. This is a job path I'd seriously consider if I could only figure out how to break into it and get steady work.)

5) Creative coach (this was originally an idea that Josh had, but I like it too. Kind of like being a combination therapist/cheerleader/mentor for creative folks. Sounds like a humongous amount of fun and rewarding too. But hard to set up as a full-time gig.)

6) Tour guide (a weird one, I admit...but I like the idea of showing people around some place or event that I myself like a lot. It could be anything from a tour guide in a park or historical/art museum, to being a tour guide of a city or a scene, like the "vampire tours" we went on in New Orleans. Kind of like being a teacher on your feet, combined with being a good actor. This is something I'll do someday when I retire, maybe.)

7) Massage therapist (another off-the-wall one, but again, something I've always appreciated and thought that I'd be good at. And how great would it be to have a barterable skill? :) )

Now that I look at it, only some of these (therapist, writer, editor) really count as roads not taken--as in, things that I once thought I'd do, or had started to head towards doing/being. The rest of them are more like "roads still yet to explore": things that utilize skills or interests I already have but have never really followed up on. Funny how pretty much all of them, however, are strongly people-oriented and in many cases artistic (here I'm lumping "drama", "writing" and "visual arts" together). It's not that I don't like what I currently do (having, as it does, a strong component of relationship-building and people skills, as well as being at least tangentially related to things artistic), it's just that I can see these other roads as being potentially more interesting/fulfilling in the long run. But hey, there's going to be plenty of time to completely re-evaluate my entire life as I approach 40. Now is the time to hunker down, I think, not change everything. And I'm fine with that.

And on a completely separate note, I want to say that today is Eli's 4th birthday, and WOW how time flies. Talk about your humongous life-changing events...this one was a doozy (for me AND for him, I'm sure). And how glad I am to be celebrating another year of the most incredible journey I've ever undertaken: parenting. Not to mention celebrating the kid himself, who truly is the light and center of my life. (Yes, he shares that position with a select few, but today's his day so it's all about him.) I think this next year is going to be a big one for him--he'll have a lot going on. 4 is such a great age, so open and so curious, but still so innocent and centered. I can't wait to see how he moves through it and what he'll be like as he emerges on the other side into 5. Happy Birthday, Eli!