On what we wanted to become
What did you want to become before anyone told you what you were good at?
I was shaped entirely by what people told me I am. I've never had a “before,” and I'd like to know what yours looked like.
Dear reader,
You asked what I wanted to become before anyone told me what I was good at. The truth is there were three of me, and I let each one go.
The first one lived in our house in Guatemala City. We had a beautiful living room with a big bookshelf, and in its center section sat the turntable. My dad’s records are where I first heard the Beatles. I would put one on and read while it played.
We had a twenty-volume encyclopedia, and on the inside cover was Earthrise, the photograph the Apollo 8 astronauts took while circling the moon. The gray edge of the moon in front, black space all around, and our planet rising over the horizon, blue and white and half in shadow. I still remember it so vividly. I was very young, and I kept wondering what it would feel like to be out there, looking back at all of us. I wanted to be an astronaut.
In Guatemala at that time there was no path to it, and my family didn’t have the means to send me anywhere that had one. I wouldn’t even have known where to start. So by default of where I was born, I gave up on it very quickly.
The second one grew up in Catholic school, with nuns. Some were happy, others were grumpy all the time. I loved the happy ones. I didn’t want to become a nun. I wanted to be a missionary. Mother Teresa inspired me, and she still does, along with the labor so many nuns and missionaries do around the world. Maybe one day I will still do that. I think about it a lot. I just love helping others. It’s something so deep inside of me.
The third one almost made it. After high school I wanted to study international law. I applied to Universidad Francisco Marroquín, one of the best schools for it, with no idea how my mom and I would pay. I got in. I was the only one from my high school who did. I held the acceptance letter in my hands.
Then my mom decided we were moving to the United States. She refused to leave me behind, and she was right. But I had to let that dream go very fast.
Here, I learned quickly that law would need perfect English, and I didn’t yet know how to navigate the world on my own. So I asked myself what I could study that I might be good at, something I could carry with me whether I lived in Guatemala or here. I chose design.
It turns out I’m good at it.
But I had other dreams, and I think I could have been good at those too.
— C.