From The Top

As a kid I always loved entering people's homes. When a new friend at school would invite me over to play or I got a new babysitting job, I was excited to see where they lived. I liked to see how their personality translated into their homes. Sometimes I would (and still do), imagine how I would rearrange their furniture, tear down a wall, or what colors I would paint the walls.

I spent a lot of time alone as a kid, drawing - sometimes pictures of people or things, but more often I drew floor plans. I drew fantastical homes with 3 floors and 10 bedrooms all with walk-in closets, and I imagined the plush leather couches that would fill these homes.

When I was 11, and my family moved, I went house hunting with my parents and took extensive notes on each house. I pictured myself living in each one. Which room would be mine? Where would I put my bed?

I don't know where this fascination came from. My parents are both teachers, and neither one is very artistic, but they encouraged my obvious interest in architecture and interior design.

When I was 12 or 13, I saw an article in a magazine about teenagers with outrageous bedrooms. One girl had painted all of her walls like a forest and slept in a tent in the middle of the room. I asked my mother if I could paint a mural on my wall. She obliged. I went to town. This is what I came up with:

Please disregard everything else in the picture, including my Superman t-shirt - it was 1995

It's nothing brilliant, but I loved doing it.

Then one summer my parents went to a garage sale and came home with two wooden chairs, asked me to paint them. I spent much of the summer in the basement painting flowers, stripes, clouds, and then covering it all with a coat of polyurethane. My mom still has those chairs, however hideous I find them now.

A few years later I had a dream that I painted my room blue, so my mother took me to the paint store, and I painted over the mural I had since outgrown. Then I painted my brother's room and advised my mother on what color to paint her's.

There was no question I would go to college for interior design, and I loved every second of it. And yet, I still have not figured out how to turn this passion into an actual career that I enjoy. The interior designer of my childhood dreams did not sit behind a computer all day working from some Higher-Up's specifications nor was she a salesperson shilling expensive furniture for commissions.

I have been lucky in a lot of areas of my life. I was born into an amazing family, somehow found the man I want to spend my life with when I was 22, and have incredible friends. Yet, I am 27 years-old, and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

I know what I love, but I haven't figured out how to turn it into a career.