Living the Dream

For years I have dreamed of working with children. As a child my favourite thing to do was play with my dolls and pretend to get married and have kids! Then when my mum became a childminder when I was 9 I just knew I wanted to work with kids. My mind was set up and I dreamed of one day becoming a school teacher...

That is until I reached my GCSE years and began thinking about my options for the future. When telling my teachers I was planning on staying in my hometown to train as a teacher I was told over and over again "You should go to university first, you are capable of it". I didn't want to go to university... but it seemed that people just assumed I would go - I was clever and that was that...

I became really depressed in my final year at school - and dropped from getting straight A's to failing my resits - all because I gave up trying... I didn't want to go to university - the idea terrified me and I didn't have a passion to study there at all... as it was I chose the uni for its campus before I'd even decided what to study.

Going to uni was the hardest thing I have ever done - possibly the best thing I ever did to begin with - making me become independent and all that... but once I had overcome my fears of leaving home uni held nothing for me. Oh, I got the best out of it I could - I worked in Germany, studied in Russia, visited other countries and developed my internet capabilities and began writing more and more... but my heart wasn't in the academic side of things and I felt stifled, pressurised and miserable.

I couldn't wait for uni to end - I almost left in my second year but got talked into staying. What irritates me the most is not that people didn't support me but that I didn't have the courage to believe in what I wanted and go for it.

When I finished uni I didn't know what to do - I was so terrified of making a mistake that I was trapped - what I had thought I wanted I didn't - what I thought would make me happy, didn't... and I felt utterly miserable...

Eventually I found myself working at Specsavers (an opticians in Britain) and although the work was interesting, it wasn't enough - there was too much pressure to learn things I didn't want to learn (i.e. about specs and contact lenses etc)... I thought to myself that if I'm gonna put this much effort into it I may as well be doing something I *really* want to do.

So then when a nursery offered me a job to work in the babyroom for more money than I earned I just couldn't refuse.

And so, on Thursday I begin my new job. I moved house last week and my last day at work was on Saturday - so many changes are happening in my life right now and so it is a bit challenging. I have fears that maybe I threw away a perfectly good job. Maybe I won't be any happier at the nursery... so many what-ifs...

It is doubly scary because I am *finally* doing what I have dreamt of doing for so many years - what if it doesn't make me happy... that's a lot of pressure...

I know I love children - I know I love caring for people - it's what I enjoy the most - but is it going to be enough? Time will tell - I just hope it is because I don't want to have to go through another upheaval so soon...