You Can Be.......

Not too many years ago a boy didn't have many options. If his dad was a carpenter, he could be a carpenter. If his dad was a farmer, he could be a farmer. Stepping outside the role you were born into was hard. Your best bet to step outside that was to be sold into an apprenticeship where you worked long hours for not much more than food for years and years with the promise that someday you'd be good enough to join the guild and actually get paid. If you were a girl, you looked longingly at the wide array of options that boys had. You could be a wife, or not, and the choice wasn't even always yours to make.
Sometime between then and now we've decided that you can be whatever you want. At least that's what I heard growing up. You want to be a fireman? Go be a fireman. Astronaut? Go climb up the rocket. President? Sure kid, all you've got to do is get half of everyone to vote for you. How hard can it be? Lots of dreams came from this simple idea.
Then life happens. Maybe you realize that as the smallest boy in jr. high your probably not going to make the NFL no matter how much you like football. You could be soldier dashing off to battle, but that only works if there's actually a war, otherwise you dig latrines and wash your tank and wait. Doctor sounds like fun until you learn about the 20 years of school and residency and all of that. One by one the doors shut. You can be whatever you want, except for the things that you can't be.
As I was driving home the other night I had an epiphany (or I started my mid life crisis). I was a race car driver. I was returning from a race with race numbers on the side and race tires in the back. A trophy sticker was on the seat next to me. I had driven my car in a race, and won. I was a race car driver. Holy cow. That got me to thinking. There was a time where I was a rock climber. I was also a big game hunter. I'd lived on a ship at sea. I'd traveled to foreign lands. I crewed on a racing sailboat. I built the second story on my own house with my own two hands. I did all of these things while living quite an ordinary life. Middle class. College. Work. Babies.
Yes, there are things that are probably still out of reach. I'm probably not going to space. I could learn to fly if I wanted to though. Flying lessons are expensive, but it's not impossible. I'm not going to be president, but I could certainly run for elected office, even if I didn't win. I am a race car driver. Suddenly the world has grown. It's all in my head, but I realized that it's always been in my head. Most of those options that I thought shut down as I grew up were shut down by me. The only person who ever told me I couldn't be a fire fighter was me. I drive by the volunteer fire department every single day. They need volunteers. If the thought of walking into a burning building didn't nearly make me pee myself, I could run down there and sign up today.
The really exciting part about all of this isn't me at all, it's my kids. Like all parents I've been telling my kids that they can be whatever they want to be, all the while knowing that it's not quite true. Except now I realized that it actually is true. It's true as long as you realize that you can be whatever you want to be, but you might need to be other things at the same time to make that happen. The president is the president, but even he had another job before hand. The volunteer fire fighters have day jobs and put out fires in their off time. Every race car driver I drove with this weekend has a job that put them in that car. My kids really can be whatever they want to be, they just have to work to make it happen within the life that they are living. Doors and dreams don't have to close. They might need to be smaller doors and dreams, but they can always be there if you want them to be. Always.
You really can be whatever you want to be.