musings of a young girl with a career.

I’ve been searching for my writer’s voice for a long time now. I've been a wedding blogger, a faith blogger, a motivational blogger, a movie review blogger. Anything that captivates my thoughts and interests I have written about.

The only significant thing in my life that I’ve never said anything about is my career. This struck me as especially peculiar. I spend all day, all week doing my job. Some days it challenges me to learn new things, and from it I generate enough money to provide for myself and have quite a bit of fun. It’s really satisfying to talk to people at parties or when I’m getting my hair done at the salon, because when they ask where I work I get to say, “I’m a TV producer."

I’m very proud of what I do. I work hard at it and take a lot of responsibility for the product that I produce. Even so, there are days I feel like my job sounds a thousand times better than it is. I even occasionally feel a pang of envy when I log into Facebook and see old college classmates anchoring evening newscasts. In Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean In” she talks about how the work force is no longer a ladder but a jungle gym. Sometimes I see myself swinging along with my peers on the monkey bars. Other times I’m afraid I’ve been laying around in the sandbox by myself for too long. I’m never sure how to describe what it is that I do.

Its odd, after a couple years of answering the “what do you do” question you would think that I would have narrowed it down to the most fascinating power-punch answer. Every time I reply I find myself racking my brain for the coolest possible thing to say. Why do I feel the need to impress? I guess we all want to be accepted. Impressing people is a part of that acceptance process. If we have something interesting that people want then they’re more likely to include us in their lives. So for now, my job is the thing that I use to try to impress people and be accepted.

I’ve made some pretty hairy mistakes and I’ve met some pretty cool people so far. Its been an incredible learning experience to stand by and listen to my boss converse with leaders in every imaginable industry for the last three years. Even more powerful has been my more recent experience of gaining confidence in my voice and ability to have conversations of my own. The morning I got to chat with a female lawyer at a breakfast event was so encouraging. She is the only female partner in her office. "People say you have to choose family or career, as if its a one time choice. But for me I choose each day. One day I choose to spend time with my children after school and the next day I decide to take an extra meeting and work a little late. Each day. That's how I find balance." she explained to me.

 The hours I spend sitting at my desk hammering away at my keyboard all run together. If you look at one particular day or keystroke, it seems insignificant. Once you compile all of those days and all of those keystrokes, they become the story of a girl finding her voice and finding her dreams. Yes, finding dreams. Not just chasing them, because... Dreams are not stationary things that we can set our eyes upon. Rather they are evolving impressions of the things we want.