When I Grow Up…

You can ask my mother about this, but when I was younger, I would always say that I wanted to be the next Barbara Walters. I would pretend I was a television newswoman, staring at my reflection in the microwave oven door, reading the news stories I had written.

Then when I was about 16 years old, I began writing. I may have strayed from my original path as a writer from time to time, mainly because school and life got in the way. A couple of years ago, my passion for writing was reignited and I began a blog… this blog, to be exact.

Photo Source: Pinterest / someecards

My ultimate goal was to write for a magazine, kind of like Andy in The Devil Wears Prada. I never broke out of my bubble to try my hand at magazine writing, or really even queried or applied for an internship or job in the magazine industry. Do I regret this? Maybe. Do I think as a 42-year-old woman that I could break into the magazine writing field? Who knows, but the dream will always be there in my heart and mind.

My first job after graduating from college was as a news reporter for a small daily newspaper. I covered the police beat, but I also wrote several first-person pieces. I dressed up in a fire fighter’s heavy gear and was escorted into the doorway of a home that they were burning as a training exercise. I donned motorcycle leathers and accompanied a friend on The Dragon, a deadly 318-curve highway in East Tennessee. I flew in an open-cockpit bi-plane with Goldie, the publisher of the newspaper. Goldie also introduced me to a nice gentleman who lived in his neighborhood who owned an ultralight. One Saturday, I accompanied this gentleman as we flew around in his ultralight. He even let me try my unsteady hands at flying it.

So, what genre of magazine writing would I love to try my hand at? Fashion. Celebrities. Travel.

Like Andy in The Devil Wears Prada, my fashion sense is not like high fashion. It could use some tweeking and guidance, but that shouldn’t take away from my passion for fashion. I can’t name every designer or recognized their work if it were to pass me on a New York street, but I could spot Chanel or Louis Vuitton from a mile away. I couldn’t name off every magazine editor who I would love to work for or with, but I can name my top five (in no particular order) – Joanna Coles at Cosmopolitan, Anne Fulenwider at Marie Clarie, Linda Wells at Allure, Anna Wintour at Vogue, and Cindi Leive at Glamour. You can check out some of my favorite fashion posts HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. My first year blogging was filled with “Dress Form Outfits”, which I would post weekly.

My uncanny ability to talk “celebrity” with people has always come natural. Some people often come to me when they are drawing a blank on a particular actor. More often than not, I can name that actor, the movie they are talking about, and then name several other movies that actor was in, who starred along side that actor, and sometimes even give a bit of personal (but public) information about that actor. I’m not Jeopardy-level good, but I’m good nonetheless. You can check out some of my favorite celebrities HERE, HERE, and HERE.

And finally, my wanderlust is strong. There are still so many beautiful destinations around the world that I have not seen. Actually, I’ve never been outside the continental United States. In fact, I’ve never been to California! I have a passport and would travel and write and write and travel, and then travel some more, if I could. It would be even better if I were being paid to travel and write!! You can check out some of the locations on my bucket list HERE, HERE, and HERE.

So even though I’ve 42, that’s what I’d like to be when I grow up. What would you like to be when you grow up? Leave me a comment below because I’d love to hear about what you’d like to be when you grow up!

Have a great day!

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