When we're younger people ask us what do you want to be when you grow up? Kids don't give weight to job security or salaries or society's subtle brain-washing. They answer actress or dancer, athlete, fireman, marine biologist starts slipping in there...they're told they can be anything & god help us most believe it, at least for a short while anyway. And then life happens. Parents happen. Society squeezes our sides until drawing in a deep breath must become a conscious act.
There was a girl once, white hair & freckles. She sang to herself a lot, lost for hours in a world all her own. They asked her too. What do you want to be? "happy" was her response....there was a pause, a furrowed brow and consternation. "You don't understand the question you elfish child".
She gazed up, her green eyes focusing, becoming clearer, "You don't understand life".
This year the question has become exhumed, just as pressing. More weight and judgement waiting behind it, ready to pounce with the arguments of 'the order', of practicality, of sense goddammit. What a stand, a defiance and a freedom telling surgeons, pediatric gastroenterologists, cardiologists, deans, chief residents that I just want to be happy.
Their faces contort, the jaw opens almost imperceptibly and for a glorious moment they think...they wait for my real reply. "No, I'm being serious, I just want to be happy".
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