I was thinking about when we are little, little kids -- kindergarten or younger -- and a grown-up would ask us, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
When I was 5 or 6, someone asked me that and I answered, "A nurse." I said nurse because the neighbor girl in Akron, Sherry Witherspoon, said nurse. She was two or three years older than me, and I copied many things she did and said.
I hardly knew what a nurse did - I had some idea, I guess. But I do remember the feeling I had a little later, that I had been insincere, that I really didn't want to be a nurse, but I thought I was required to have some kind of an answer.
Later, I had my own ideas.
Today I read someone's Comment under an article -- she wrote that all little girls want to be princesses (to dress up as princesses, I think she meant) and marry a rich man.
Reflecting on this, I realized that dressing up in a ballerina costume was the closest I came to wanting to be like a princess. And that by third or fourth grade, I wanted to be a spy. And an author.
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