Five Year Plan

As a kid, your potential is boundless. You can be anything your heart desires. One day you can tell everyone that you are going to be a singer and the next day you are going to be an astronaut. Everyday there can be a new career plan. As you get older, the daily career plan turns into a monthly career plan. As you hit junior high school, you maybe have an idea of what you'd like to do as an adult but you are still free to explore other areas of interest. Maybe you are a budding actor or a talented artist and the reality of making a living at these occupations isn't a factor for you at that age. The point is that you think you can be anything when you grow up!

As far as I can remember back, I have loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian. Our house was filled with dogs and cats I found a way to raise $5.99 plus shipping and handling for a monthly set of Animal Kingdom cards. Some kids collected baseball cards or Garbage Pail Kids cards. I wanted cards that told me that the Capybera was the largest rodent in the world. I wanted to know that the Platypus was in the same family as the Opossum and the Koala. I even wanted to know that spiders and crabs were in the same class (arachnida) even though they weren't warm and fuzzy mammals!

In high school, I was delivered a blow by an adult. Someone who was supposed to be my champion decided I was worthless and I should give up my dreams. I will never forget the feeling of humiliation, the heat climbing up my neck and spreading out over my cheeks, when she said, "You aren't really college material. Perhaps you should think about becoming a secretary." This statement was made in the beginning of my sophomore year during my first meeting with Ms. Ophelia Irwin, high school guidance counselor.

I didn't understand this. I did not know what she was basing this statement on because this woman didn't know me. She didn't know my passions. She didn't know my abilities and my capabilities. What she did know, or I should say who she did know was my older, trouble-maker brother. And although I was, in my own right, a trouble-maker too, I was smart. I was academic. I knew animals and science and I was a good student. The operative word here is 'was.'

For the next three years I literally sailed through school not caring what was going to happen after graduation. My senior year I had two student assistant periods, three acting classes and creative writing. I didn't care about academics. I wasn't college material so why should I care?

I graduated with average grades and had come to terms that I would end up working at an office. I had a night job with Orange County Voter Registration filing. I couldn't expect much more from life.

But my dad thought I was college material and bless his heart, he went down to the local community college and signed me up for the first semester. I still wonder what he was thinking when he signed me up for biology, french, calculus, and freshman composition. I am so thankful that he had faith in me. But, my nagging self-doubt continued to rule and I threw away my dreams of being a vet.

So fast forward 27 years later and my need to work with animals is as strong today as it was when I was a kid. I still know that the capybera is the world's largest rodent. At 44, I'm probably not going to vet school. But I have a five-year plan to build on my existing skills as a salesperson, business leader, strategic thinker and, most of all, animal lover. I'm looking at animal behavior programs (that's the new, fancy term for dog training). I might look into a vet tech program. But ultimately, I want own a doggie daycare with all the services -- boarding, training, doggie boutique, etc.