One Goal at a Time

It's been a while.  Oh, I've been here behind this monitor pounding away fervently at this well worn keyboard, but the words I've been bringing to life haven't been the ones meant for you.  I am happy to report I am three weeks away from completing a life-long goal.  I don't know when I last shared it or if I've shared it at all, but my dream, the one I've had since I was a little girl - a little girl who was so full of hope and wonder and belief in dreams and them coming true - is to become a teacher. Sure I've had opportunities over the years to teach and train and grow and inform others, but never as a career. Never in a school.  Never in a way that I've wanted to for as long as I can remember.  We'll start there.

I have so many friends that still, at our ages, don't know what they want to be when they "grow" up.  They don't know what kind of work would make their hearts soar, that would bring joy to their hearts. Are you like that?  Do you know what you want to do more than anything in the whole wide world?  I do. I've known.  I've known since kindergarten.  I've known ever since I was old enough to understand what it meant to teach someone something. I didn't share it too much, after all my mom had other plans for me - she wanted me to go into the medical field so she chose all of my classes in school to coincide with her dream for me and when I graduated high school I dutifully went off to study medicine, but it wasn't in me and I quit.  And then I worked and became a mom and had life really begin (it does that you know, and it is messy and beautiful and hurtful and kind and funny and brilliant and full of wonder and lessons and love, and...).  But in the midst of all of this I went back to school and learned those things that could help me in my career.  I read and studied and wrote and cried and wanted to quit again and, well, this time I didn't.  I didn't because now it was for so much more than me.  Now it was to show my Littles that reaching goals and dreams can happen, yes even when we get older.  Yes, even when they take years and years to complete.

And here I am.  I am almost there.  Where completing something hard brings you a step closer to making dreams come true. To some it is just a piece of paper.  To others it is a huge undertaking and not for them.  To me, it was a mountain that God had to show me and urge me to climb and he did.  And I have. And I am almost off of it.  You guys, I will have my MBA and while that in and of itself doesn't seem like much it is one thing I need to get me where I always wanted to be.  I want to be a teacher. I want to see the look in the eyes of those who learn and understand something for the first time. I want to watch them get the knowledge they need to pursue and reach the goals and dreams they have for themselves.  Because watching people use their talents and excel and grow and be who they dream to be is so big.  It is so beautiful. It is such a blessing.


And I wonder, for all those teachers out there I have had over the years, from kindergarten through my graduate degree, if they have felt that.  That moment when they see the look in a person's (student's) eye that affirms they are in the place they need to be because they helped them get there. I've seen it.  I've seen it in the conference room, on the shop floor, in my own children's eyes and there is nothing that can beat it.  It is a look of growth and personal pride and satisfaction.

However, I will not get ahead of myself.  I know there are still a few weeks, applications, resumes, interviews, and well, just plain work to be done before I actually get there.  And I'll keep working at it because this is my dream and the one thing I want to spend my life doing.  But bigger than that even - I know this is a passion that God has given me.  It is a desire he planted in me before I was born and I trust his will in this process. And I will not give up.