What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

To celebrate our ten year anniversary, we are inviting former writers back to tpc to hear what they’ve been thinking about since leaving the post calvin. To kick things off, please welcome back Melissa Joy Dykhuis. Melissa (‘10) is an occasional scientist, frequent novelist, and everyday artistic skater. She writes adult romance and young adult science fiction as Melissa J. Roche, and her contemporary sweet romance novel, Skate Cute, will be re-released this fall. She lives in Colorado with her husband, two boys, and a cozy lap cat—only one of which is allowed to read over her shoulder. Find her books, skating videos, and more fun at her website: writerchickphd.com. 

It’s not just a question for kids. Or perhaps we’re all kids, if we let ourselves be, and so it’s a question for all of us. We’re all growing, whether in inches or ideas, spurts or spirits, careers or curiosities.

If we’re all always growing up, maybe the real question is what do we want to be growing up into right now?

***

This July marks ten years since the post calvin launched, which means it’s been ten years since my first official post “On How To Remain In Control While Having A Child.” Which also means that it’s been ten years since the birth of my son. He’s now old enough to have heard the titular question more than a few times himself.

He wants to be a mathematician. And a business owner, of a pet accessory and adoption store called “Kit Bit.” He is already a mathematician, a compassionate pet owner, a creative, a musician, a deep thinker, an empath, a friend, and a beloved son.

And I, his mother, am not, and never was, In Control. But it was a fun essay.

***

About two years after I wrote that post, I switched careers. Or rather, careers switched me. That’s what happens when the funding rug rips out from under the best laid plans of graduating PhD students.

It happens. It’s devastating. It’s not always bad.

So I moved states and houses, and met a new soon-to-be best friend. She asked me what I liked to do, and I answered with what I was (a scientist) and then added what I wanted to be (a science fictionist).

Almost eight years later, I’ve written over a million words in novels, published one of them (two more coming soon!), and stacked up several more on my to-be-written shelf.

I currently want to be a novelist—today, tomorrow, and for as long as it’s still fun.

***

Anyone remember “Quest”?

I’m not sure if it’s around anymore, but back when I started as a freshman at Calvin just about half my life ago, they put me in a launching group called “Quest.” To my memory, it was a series of events and talks (and awkward icebreakers) designed to help me make a few friends, maximize my potential, carpe the bright new diem, and generally make the most of my upcoming college experience. A whirlwind weekend of “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

I think I might still be a member of “Quest Group 34—Best Group Ever!!!!” from the early days of Facebook. (But confirming that would require sifting through the sediment of my social media archives. Which sounds like as much fun as the dreams where I’m moving myself and all my stuff back into those tiny dorm rooms. Or those nightmares where I forgot to attend Professor Moseley’s calculus class all semester up to the final exam…)

Toward the end of Quest, they handed me a paper with a question: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

That was easy. I scribbled out my usual script: college = 4 years, grad school = 5+ years, then a few postdocs after that. Ergo, my answer: Somewhere on the path from here to career research astronomer.

Maybe husband. Maybe kids. Maybe here, maybe there. The peripherals didn’t matter, just the passion.

Now? Go figure, the peripherals are my passion.

***

“Find your Fun!”

It’s the motto I chose for my author website, the script I now scribble with my new autograph on the title pages of my signed paperbacks. Everyone can try it—grad students, romance authors, astronomers, firefighters, artistic skaters. Just ask my characters, who’ve helped me find the fun in all of the above.

I’ve found that life isn’t fun if you aren’t growing—practicing, training, learning, changing, transforming. It’s not so much the when you grow up as the growing itself, and what will you be is a question for now as well as then.

So, whoever you are, go try it. Grow. And dream, now and then. And for the love of all that’s awesome, have fun while you’re at it.

 

If you are a former writer and interested in contributing, email info@thepostcalvin.com