{"id":1470,"date":"2021-09-09T14:20:45","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T14:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/?p=1470"},"modified":"2021-09-09T14:20:45","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T14:20:45","slug":"what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up\/","title":{"rendered":"What do you want to be when you grow up?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was four, I wanted to be a tapdancer. At family gatherings, I would sing \u2018On the good ship lollypop\u2019 and tapdance in a pair of my mother\u2019s shoes that made lovely tap-tap-tap sounds against most types of floors, apart from lino which was unfortunate because there was a fair bit of it around in 1974.<\/p>\n

When I was ten, I wanted to be a waitress in the canteen at the airport where my father worked. His office was in the hanger and whenever he took us there to see the planes, we\u2019d go to the canteen afterwards and the waitress would wink at us and pile our plates high with chips. She said kids could never have enough chips, which was a sentiment I happened to agree with, in 1980.<\/p>\n

When I was eighteen, I wanted to be a singer in a rock and roll band and, for a brief spell in the late 80s \/ early 90\u2019s, I was. A backing singer. In a Dublin soul band. We spent a lot more time practising and having heated debates in the pub about the philosophy of the band than we ever did actually performing but still, I was a singer in a band so I could tick that particular item off my to-do list. Then the film \u2018The Commitments\u2019 came out and everyone decided that we were a Commitments-tribute band. It didn\u2019t matter how many times we said that we were around long before that film came out. Thanks a bunch, Roddy Doyle.<\/p>\n

When I was twenty, I left home and moved to Switzerland, leaving behind my various dreams of dancing, catering and rock \u2018n roll. I worked in the World Health Organisation, I had a flat, money for clothes and drinks and haircuts and books. I had independence. It was like the Christmas I got the roller skates. It was that good.<\/p>\n

From then until I turned 34 in the spring of 2004, I did various bits and pieces: I travelled, I asked a good friend to marry me, I learned how to cook spaghetti carbonara, I passed my driving test, I gave birth, got a mortgage, got a promotion. I was officially all grown up. A proper adult.<\/p>\n

One day, in 2004, I was standing on the platform at the train station in Donabate where I live. There was nothing extraordinary about this day, but as I stood there in the throng, I suddenly realised that I didn\u2019t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I felt that was a bad thing, given that I was grown up. As oversights go, this one felt big. I was an insurance loss adjuster at the time. I had never planned to become one. It just happened. All of a sudden, as I stood on the platform in the throng, I realised I was in a rut. The realisation settled on me like a dark cloud and followed me around for months. My husband noticed. He said, \u2018What ails you?\u2019 I said, \u2018I don\u2019t know what I want to be when I grow up.\u2019 He said, \u2018You\u2019re already grown up.\u2019 I said, \u2018I know, it\u2019s worrying.\u2019<\/p>\n

Then a man fell off the roof at Plunkett college in Whitehall and I was sent out to investigate the incident on behalf of the college\u2019s insurance company. I got up on the roof, took some photographs, managed not to fall off and had a conversation with the principal, a lovely man who, in the general course of conversation, told me all about their evening adult education programme and gave me a booklet with the details of the courses.<\/p>\n

The creative writing class started on a Tuesday. It was raining. Dark and cold. I didn\u2019t know anyone. I was hungry, having come straight from work. I\u2019m not good when I\u2019m hungry. I\u2019m cranky when I\u2019m hungry. I worried that I would make a fool out of myself. I hadn\u2019t written anything other than cheques, and reports for work, and letters before the advent of e-mail. I can\u2019t really say why I picked that course. I loved reading. I remember Maeve Binchy saying, in a radio interview, that she was reading a book and thought to herself, \u2018I could do that\u2019 and she started writing a book that turned out to be Light a Penny Candle. I remember feeling the same way. Reading books and thinking, \u2018I could do that. How difficult can it be?\u2019<\/p>\n

Turns out that it is difficult. Challenging. Frustrating. Time-consuming. Stressful. But when I write my two favourite words in the English language \u2013 which happen to be \u2018The\u2019 and \u2018End\u2019 \u2013 the sense of achievement and \u2013 this sounds a bit American but I\u2019ll say it anyway \u2013 fulfilment, is enormous. I do something that I love. That I\u2019m passionate about. It\u2019s not always easy but it\u2019s always interesting.<\/p>\n

And finally, I know what I want to be when I grow up.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat do you want to be when you grow up? - Ciara Geraghty<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What do you want to be when you grow up? - Ciara Geraghty\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Ciara Geraghty\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CiaraGeraghtyBooks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-09-09T14:20:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Ciara-Geraghty-by-Steve-Humphreys.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"412\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ciara Geraghty\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ciarageraghty\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ciarageraghty\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ciara Geraghty\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ciara Geraghty\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/#\/schema\/person\/50da80ea84abf37edc336f90415f8521\"},\"headline\":\"What do you want to be when you grow up?\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-09-09T14:20:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-09-09T14:20:45+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up\/\"},\"wordCount\":1453,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Trains - planes and automobiles - of thought\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ciarageraghty.com\/what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up\/\",\"name\":\"What do you want to be when you grow up? 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