I always panic when someone asks me what I want to do when I grow up.

But then again, don't we all? I am in college, I've figured out which general direction I would like to go in, but that's still so general, and from time to time I ask myself if it is the right general direction, despite its general nature.

Panic is only natural. After all, at this point, I have hopefully lived out approximately a fourth of an average lifetime. the remaining three-fourths are yet to be decided. I am still not matured. But the pressure that we don't receive from the outside, but rather from within ourselves, is about as certain as death and taxes.

I have a total of two memories from when I was in kindergarten. One, I remember a lesson on compassion. I remember that because I was so proud of myself that I could say and spell a word as big as "compassion," but that's another story. The second thing I remember is a sheet of paper that said, "What if you could do whatever you want?" I remember writing down that I wanted to be a pop-star, that I wanted to sing center stage with a huge spot on me dancing in a bright orange dress. There was a pretty little first grade drawn picture to accompany the mental image. In a world where possibilities were endless, in other words, first grade, all I wanted was to share my soul in the form of a stage and music. Specifically, Disney songs. You see, I was convinced that I was secretly a princess.

I genuinely wonder what would have happened had I maintained that dream. In high school I was a theater kid, dancing and singing my heart out, dreaming that I would one day make the big stage. Granted, the orange dress had been replaced with purple and the song choice had changed quite a bit, though I still dreamed of singing in front of an orchestra. There's something truly empowering about opening your mouth and screaming at some specific pitch over that number of instruments. Alas, though I loved performing, there was something about the process that I never enjoyed. As a first grader, you think of nothing but the end goal - and that remains true as you grow old. But as a first grader, the right to dream without precaution is granted along with the promise of growing old.

I remember the exact moment I realized I wasn't meant for the theatrical stage, although I wasn't thinking about my first-grade dreamer self at that point in time. Oddly enough, I was put on the camera as opposed to in front of it. I began writing what other people would read, I filmed what others would perform, I edited what was said, I manipulated technology to create something I was proud enough of to present to the world. It was no longer an orange dress with Disney music–rather, it was poetry and a forest. I learned how to take a performance from the stage to the real world.

Don't get me wrong, I still absolutely love theater. But when asked what I would like to do for the rest of my life, I have the usual panic attack when I don't have the immediate answer. I lost that a long time ago. The certainty of first grade is no longer with me, but the uncertainty of the future always has been. I take an odd kind of comfort in that. Even though I have found something I love doing, I also know that it can change at any moment. And I'm okay with it.

Bring it on, future.