Bring Back the Words Week 7: In Another Life

I am participating in Ginger's Bring Back the Words Link up...check it out!

Prompt 1: In another life, what career/job would you have, and why?

I've thought a lot at different times through my life what I would do different if I was able to start over and select a different career.  There are a couple of ideas that have crossed my mind at different times and given the right circumstances, I could have made them happen.  But let's first start with my current career.  I decided to study business in college because I had a dream of opening my own dance studio and I figured a business background would help me know how to run the place and my school didn't have a dance major.  My first business classes included accounting principles and, much to my surprise, I was actually really good at it.  Accounting made sense to me.  Once I realized that, my path changed and suddenly I was exploring my options for completing an accounting degree and sitting for the CPA exam.  The CPA exam hasn't happened and I have ventured away from true accounting to a more finance role within my industry (government contracting) but I do have the accounting degree now.  I don't love accounting but I am good at what I do and it pays the bills so it works.

 

Now if I was to do a job that I would love it would either be as a makeup artist or an arts administrator.  I have always loved playing with makeup.  I love the colors and seeing what other people wear.  My sister-in-law was a Mary Kay lady while I was in high school and college and my favorite thing to do was go through all the samples to try out the different colors.  So fun!  I'm not sure how far I would have been able to get making a career out of makeup.  I'm not a sales person so doing Mary Kay wouldn't work for me and I doubt I would have ever made it doing makeup in the theatre but that doesn't change my love for it.  Surprisingly, I don't wear a lot of makeup on a normal basis.  I love to dress up with makeup but for every day, it is just the basics.

 

As for being an arts administrator, I really think this is the career I was supposed to have.  My senior year in college (a little late at that point!), someone came to speak from the Alabama Arts Council about her job as an arts administrator.  She worked on grants for arts programs and other activities around the state.  I was fascinated listening to her describe what she did and suddenly realized I had found my calling.  I love dance and theatre and most everything associated with the arts.  This sounded like a dream job to me.  I went so far as to apply to the College of Charleston's Arts Administration program.  I was accepted but the timing and the logistics just didn't work.  So here I am 10 years later doing what works not what I'm passionate about and that's OK because I think about all the things I wouldn't have if I had followed a different path and that I wouldn't be OK with.