when i grow up

I've been reading a lot lately. So far this year I have read 10 books (and 2 half-books.) I keep track on my phone of books I want to read and books I have read. It makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something instead of wasting time.

Here are the books I have read/listened to so far this year:

Man's Search for Meaning
Carry-On Warrior
What's Math Got to Do With It?
Freakenomics
It's Just My Nature and The Child Whisperer
The Selection Series
Rising Strong
Better Than Before (Currently reading)
Global Mom (I read half of it)
A Walk in the Woods (also half)


I'm noticing a theme. With the exception of The Selection Series, it is all non-fiction. Specifically its kind of research-based/self-improvement type. (Early last year I was on a books about racism streak: Boys in the Boat, The Help, Go Set a Watchman, The Invention of Wings, March - all fabulous.)  This I can't seem to get into a novel. Even by the end of last year I started into it with Simplicity Parenting and David and Goliath.

Over the last couple years I have been exploring the question "what do I want to do when I grow up?" I have thought about going back to school for Public Health or Sociology and Economics. I really want to go back to school, I just don't know what I want to study. Last night, while listening to Better Than Before, it hit me what I really want to do: I want to write.

This makes perfect sense of course. I have been writing my whole life. I have written regularly in my journal starting at age 8. I still have old "manuscripts" of stories that I started writing. (One about a set of twins named Vikki and Nikki.) I wrote poetry and song lyrics. Letters to friends and missionaries. I was on my high-school newspaper and loved writing papers in college.  I would practice my handwriting just so I could write something. Anything.

 Yet lately, I don't write much. Its been months since I wrote in my journal. I don't write much here, anymore either. But they say that you can hardly claim that you are a writer if you don't write. So, I am back here again, hoping for some accountability to begin writing again.

If I could do anything, it would be to write a book. I'm not interested in being a novelist, though I do love novels.  I love books about observation and data. The interesting thing is about the authors that wrote these books is that the majority studied something else in college.  Law, social work, psychology, economics, mathematics, etc. (And in Malcolm Gladwell's case, journalism).  But they all wrote eventually. I guess I don't have a good answer still to what I want to study in college at some elusive future date, but at least I know what I want to do.

And I can do that write now.

(See what I did there? Winky-face emoticon)

*post-script: while I wrote this, Katie covered herself her marker.