Sarah in Real Life

My mom and I whipped up a really yummy dish last night.
(Saying "whipped" in relation to food always makes me think of mashed potatoes. We didn't make mashed potatoes.)
A lot of fresh, healthy food. Food reminiscent of a spa.
Sometimes I think it would be fun to be a spa chef. Sometimes I think I'd like to be a group fitness instructor. My favorite show is Bones. I'm not very observant, but I am intrigued by all things gross (like organs, blood, and bones), and sometimes I think it would nice to have a job like that.

I don't know.
I don't want to teach English for the rest of my life. It's fine, but it's not entirely who I am.
At 18, I chose teaching because it would allow me to be positively involved in the lives of teenagers without getting paid to counsel them. I hated the idea of being paid to help people work through their problems when it seemed to me that most "counselors" worth talking to didn't charge. They were friends, mentors, family members.

I wanted to be mentor.
I liked English. I was naturally good at it, due mostly to the fact that I spent so much of my childhood squished into my bed and book-traveling to other worlds. My high school English teacher was fantastic and loved her students well. Teaching English surely was the way to go if I wanted to effect teenagers positively.

So, I went to college where I didn't really fit in with the English teacher crowd, because I didn't like most of what is considered to be classic English literature. (I'm still not a big fan of Shakespeare, by the way.) I learned to appreciate poetry, I wrote a lot of papers, and I came out with a degree in Secondary English Education.

Today, I am a teacher. Mission accomplished, right?

You know, the truth is, I can pick any of the above jobs, and the outcome will be similar (although sometimes I still think it would be so much fun to be a chef in a spa or a place like Ten Thousand Villages). I will like it, I will enjoy getting to know more people and building into their lives. But I just don't know that I'm going to be completely satisfied with a job.

Because when I get down to what I really want, outside of anyone else's expectations, or the expectations I imagine are on me, I want the same thing I've wanted since I was 16 years old.
I want to be a youth pastor's wife, and I want to be a mom.

Today, I am a youth pastor's wife. I didn't go to a Bible college in search of a husband, and I actually fell in love with Tim before he chose to be a youth pastor. But I have what I want. Kids to love and mentor and sometimes...mother.

Huh.