What Do You Want to Be?

          When you were a child, did people ever ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up? I know I was asked that. In fact, I've been getting that question a lot more often now that I'm in the "planning for college" stage. However, I'm finding that it's a lot harder to answer now, whereas when I was a child I could have been anything my imagination could come up with. What did you want to be as a child? I wanted to be a missionary; going to far away places and meeting new people seemed like such an adventure to me. Three years ago, I would have said I wanted to major in music - little did I know that that was a super broad range of topics. Two years ago: concert pianist. One year ago: concert pianist/songwriter/musicology major/drowning in possibilities. Now: aha! Music Therapist.
          Yep, I think I seriously had an "aha!" moment. I hadn't even heard of music therapy until about three weeks ago. I did some research online and found out that it takes everything I want to do and combines it into one. Of course, since music has been such a focal point in my life, I want it to have a part in my career; I've seriously been thinking about working with special needs kids; I loved playing piano in the nursing home and talking to the residents; I'm really interested in psychology; I like interacting with people - I think it's perfect!
          You know how sometimes you think you want to do something because it seems logical that you should? That's sort of how I was going about everything - I was looking at degrees that would seem obvious for someone like me. I think I was playing it safe. There's nothing wrong with me becoming a concert pianist or music professor, I know would enjoy that kind of career. However, none of those ideas struck me as "Yes! You perfect idea, you." They were more along the lines of "Duh! What else?!" Is this making any sense at all? Anyway, the point of all of this is to say that I think I might have finally made a decision - huge accomplishment! I'm planning on sitting in on some classes at a nearby college. Also, our student minister's girlfriend (she's how I found out about music therapy) said I could shadow her some time to see what it's like. I can't wait to see how this all plays out!