You just won't effin' believe it, but...

I have finally decided what to be when I grow up.

I know, after months and months and months of me saying, "I'm moving to Chicago! Wait, I'm going to be a neurosurgeon! Er, I'm going to be a potter who lives in a shack in the woods who weaves her own clothes! No, no, I'm going to write a novel on my lunch hour and then move to San Diego!" that I'm losing my credibility faster than Paris Hilton is contracting yet another venereal disease, but I've come up with a decision that makes me feel happy. I'm going to apply to the Social Work program at my alma mater in pursuit of an MSW. King V's worst fears have been realized: I have grown up to become a social worker.

When I was a kid, I devoured tons of books about children who got hurt. That's about the only way I can describe the stories. There was a whole series of them that I would check out of the school library repeatedly. One was about a teenage football player who was struck in the back while diving for the ball and paralyzed during a game. The story followed his rehabilitation following the accident and discussed, basically, his life in a wheelchair. I'm sure I found that one fascinating because, and I swear I'm not making this up, I spent a good portion of my childhood wanting to be paralyzed. I even had King V build me a set of crutches. He took two planks of wood and carved out handholds and off I went, clumping through our tiny house, one leg at a time held aloft, an imaginary cast (or amputated limb) trailing behind me. Either I was psychotically empathetic or my diagnosis as a Class A Nutcase was defined very early in my youth. For the sake of self-preservation, I am going to go with empathy which should now solicit a lovely “Aww!” from the crowd. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

King V says my hyper-empathetic phase lasted about two years, during which time an awesome family in-joke was born. King V, Mack Daddy Smooth, and I were leaving the library where I had just checked out a book – probably for the fourth or fifth time – entitled Sometimes My Mother Drinks Too Much. Now, as you can guess, Queen S is a lot of things, but she’s not an alcoholic. However, I latched onto that book and as we strode out of the library, we saw one of the town gossips headed our way. I don’t remember the incident, but King V says he swept my book, which I was holding with the title facing out, of course, into his arms in a kind, fatherly here-my-precious-daughter-let-me-carry-your-books-FOR-you sort of gesture. And with that one, swift move, my mother’s reputation was saved and a lifetime of friendly ribbing was born. As you’ve probably figured, QS can neither get away with getting at all tipsy in front of the rest of our immediate family during the holidays, nor is she allowed to ever forget anything.

So, a budding social worker was formed. I donated what money I could to the St. Jude Children's Hospital and got cards from Danny Thomas thanking me for my donation (which couldn’t have been more than $5 or $10 at the most – I was eight and didn’t have a job, after all). Sometime before my family moved to River City, my crutch-walking years ended, but The Empathy Train kept on chugging because I clearly remember wanting to be a doctor until I was a sophomore in high school. Unfortunately, the emotionally scarring experiences in my high school math and science classes happened and I sent my dream away, convinced I was too stupid to even succeed in medical school. The desire, however, to help people has never been far out of my consciousness. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that's probably why I've disliked a number of my jobs or had trouble trying to convince an employer during an interview that I definitely wanted to a [insert job title here] at [company name]. Really! Honest! My God, the desperation must have just poured out of me.

Of course, parts of jobs I've had, my current job in marketing included, have been great. But I'm not helping anyone. Sure, V & Co. helps clients with their collateral materials or helps a firm promote an event, but I'm talking about the helping, obviously, that's more related to helping someone get back on their feet after a house fire destroys all of their possessions. Something that really matters to me and the rest of the world. Thus, I think training in social work is a good idea. It gets me in grad school, where I’ve wanted to be for the past six years; it starts me on a path to a career that I will likely enjoy far more than working a graveyard shift in Denny’s, ringing up customers in a bookstore, or writing a news release for a client event that no one, even the client’s mother, is willing to attend; and it will enable me to help people in a way that feels even more right than pursuing a Master’s in Occupational Therapy. I might even get crazy and take some courses in Psychology and end up with a Ph.D. in something. Dr. Dangerous. I like how that sounds.

Then, natch, I’m going to become the first truck-driving ballerina astronaut in space.