My Own Identity Crisis

Lately I have discovered that I am struggling with an identity. Maybe it is my mid-life crisis. I’m not really sure. What I do know is that I have started to think too much of who I am and what I want to be.

As a child, I wanted to be a teacher or a postman. I think that I also wanted to be a secretary. You see, during the summer I travelled with my Dad as he worked. During his down time, I played on his typewriter (boy, does that date me) and his calculator. Over time, he showed me how to write up his expense reports for him to review. It was the summer before eighth grade. We were in Tampa, Florida when my Dad was talking about a man he had had a meeting with. He was an accountant. When my Dad described what an accountant was, I decided that was what I wanted to be. Such was the life road decided by me.

Taking accounting in high school, I thought for sure that was my calling. It was so easy. It stayed that way until my junior year in college when I discovered that I hated it but was too far into my education to change majors. I was to be an accountant.

I was an accountant for almost twenty years. About thirteen years after graduation, I volunteered to teach a Bible class. I fell in love with teaching. That was what I wanted to do.

Yet, to get an education to teach was not in the picture. I needed time and money of which none was available to me. It was just a pipedream.

Losing my accounting job gave me that opportunity. Why not go back to school? Why not get that history degree that I always wanted? I was already writing weekly on history topics. Go for it.

So, I went back to school. The first classes were great. Then I began to freak out the next term. I started telling  myself that I could not do it. I was convincing myself that I was too busy and that mentally I was not up to it. Actually, it took my husband going head to head with me to get me to complete a couple of assignments and get back into the routine.

The love of history and wanting to teach others is rising up again. Yet, I wonder if I will ever get to that point. I want to learn yet I want to begin teaching. 

What will I do? I’m going to do my teaching through my writing. I’m going to write lessons and teach that way. I’ll get there. I’ll fulfill the dream that I wanted to follow when I was a child.