Adapting rather than Dreaming

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

When I was five, I didn’t think about what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I wasn’t sitting in a classroom dreaming about careers or futures, or what kind of life I would have.

I didn’t think that far ahead.

I was too busy figuring out how to exist in the moment I was in.

Learning how to read a room before I spoke.

How to stay quiet when something didn’t feel right.

How to listen instead of talk.

I learned how to notice shifts in tone, in energy—things most people don’t even realize children shouldn’t have to understand that early.

I didn’t have the space to imagine a future.

I had to learn how to navigate the present.

People love asking that question like it’s harmless.

Like childhood is supposed to be soft.

Like we all grew up believing we had endless options and the safety to dream about them.

But not all of us did.

Some of us didn’t grow up dreaming…

we grew up adapting.

We learned how to make ourselves smaller when we needed to.

How to stay aware.

How to survive environments that didn’t leave room for imagination.

So no—

I didn’t want to be anything.

Not because I lacked imagination,

but because I didn’t have the luxury of using it.

The person I became didn’t come from a childhood dream.

It came from everything I had to learn before I even understood what growing up meant.