A ballerina, a pig, a superhero, a performer, a person in a history book, a teacher, a vice president, a break dancer, a secret agent, someone famous, a chef, a YouTuber, a business owner, a voice actor, a therapist, a character designer, a mom, an author, an artist and a counselor. What do all of these things have in common? They are all things that I dreamed of being at some point in my life. Yes, I wanted to be a pig. I was like five, okay? I also wanted to be an assassin for exactly thirty seconds before I realized that would involve killing people and then opted to be a secret agent instead. I really was a smart kid, I promise! Why else would I want to be a VICE president instead of THE president? Putting aside my questionable reasoning behind wanting to be all of these things, it's easy to see that I've always had a very wide range of interests, also exemplified by my YouTube subscription box which is equally dominated by video game play-throughs and makeup tutorials, with a sprinkle of satire, political and otherwise.

The question is, why did I decide to let most of those dreams go? What made me decide to pick only one to truly aspire to? After all, I am a fairly ambitious person who is well aware of the impending boredom that she will feel with choosing only one of these dreams to pursue. Why do I feel like I can't be a therapist who is also a mother and an artist and an author who occasionally dresses up like a pig and makes YouTube videos and eventually becomes a secret agent followed by vice presidency along with fame and a spot in future history books? Well, as amazing as that sounds, it's highly unrealistic.

As we've established, I am a very multifaceted person. Sometimes, this can bring about quite a bit of difficulty in my life. One of my greatest continuous battles is between my active imagination and my extremely logical thinking. I basically have a bright eyed 6-year-old girl and senile great grandmother living together in my head. Let's call the girl "Amy" and the old lady "Mildred."

Amy is always fascinated by the world and is constantly thinking of new things she wants to do and explore and be. She sees hundreds of paths she could take and wants to take all of them and believes that if she runs fast enough, she can! Mildred, on the other hand, is constantly telling Amy that if she runs around for too long she will eventually get tired. When that happens, she won't be able to go anywhere. She'll be stuck on a path that she wasn't supposed to go down.

When I was younger, Amy was much more outspoken and stood up to Mildred. Amy told Mildred that if they had to pick a safe path with no adventure, she'd rather pick no path at all. But as time went on Mildred became more dominant. She was gaining more support from others than Amy was and eventually, Amy began to become quieter. Sometimes I can barely even hear her.

So Amy listens to Mildred. The two of them talk back and forth about which path they should take. Amy is drawn to the brightly colored paths with twists and turns and adventure on every curve. Mildred, of course, is drawn to the relatively plain and straight paths which she can clearly see the end of. Mildred tells Amy that if they pick a path like the ones Amy is drawn to, they could easily get lost, or run into trouble. It's safer to pick the simple, predictable paths. So again, Amy listens. They settle on a nice looking, clean, stable, and safe path.

Even as I'm writing this, I want to say something encouraging like, "but recently I've started to hear Amy again! She and Mildred get along great now and have learned to compromise!" I'd like to say that I'm going to pursue many of my dreams and not settle for anything less than what I know will make me happy. I want to say that we all need to listen to our Amys who are still alive and kicking somewhere in us. But that's not what I'm going to say. What I am going to say is... PLOT TWIST!!! THERE'S A NEW CHARACTER IN TOWN AND HIS NAME IS GOD!!!!

Let me tell you about God. He don't take no crap from Amy OR Mildred! He just walks in and is all like, "Y'all are trippin! You thought you were gonna take THAT path? Alright go ahead. HA! SIKE! YOU'RE GOING DOWN THIS PATH, BRUH!! I know It's not what you had in mind, but frankly, my dear, I don't give a crap nugget what you think is best. You know why? Because I'm freaking GOD! I KNOW WHAT IS BEST!" And then Amy tries to tell him she'll go down his path after she explores some other ones for herself. But God nips that in the bud real quick and tells her, "Girl, you crazy! You tryna put a hold on my plan for you? What am I, a dress you kinda like, but wanna shop around to make sure there isn't a better dress out there you'd rather have? Is this Macy's? You gonna take me to the register and just LEAVE ME THERE? Oh heck no, child. You gotta be all in." So Amy is on board, but then Mildred is over here complaining about the path being too dark and not being able to see what's coming and all this crap, and God is just like, "Mildred. Sweetie. Sugar. Oh Honey Honey. Is you dead? No? You're welcome. I got you this far, I will get you the rest of the way. I am not going to leave you stranded on a ski lift in the dead of winter until you decay and your lifeless skeleton finally slips out and free falls into four feet of fresh powder. I don't roll like that fam! Trust me girl, I GOT THIS!!" And so despite how appalled Mildred is by God's mad unnecessary use of lingo and bad grammar, she decides to trust the dude.

So now I am embarking on a dimly lit path. I can't see what is at the end, or even how many twists and turns there will be, if there are any. I'm not giving up on my dreams, not by a long shot, but I've learned to accept that some dreams are meant to stay dreams and that's okay. I still have dreams, they're just not my aspirations. My dream is to become a wife and mother who works in the field of psychology to better the lives of others, takes frequent vacations to travel the world and spends her weekends creating art in all mediums. I'd also like to eventually retire and open a nice little bakery that specializes in a great variety of cupcakes. That is my dream.

My aspiration, on the other hand, is simply to follow this dimly lit path. I aspire to do what God intends me to do, whether it be exactly like my dreams or not even remotely similar, that is what I want to do. Wherever He leads, I'll go.