When I grow up...

I did not start out to be a seamstress...
Wait let me go back a little further.

I did not start out to be anything.
I know that statement is pretty strange. No one really starts out to be anything other than human (and sadly some people fail at even that). What I mean really is that I didn't really have a goal as a child as to what I wanted from my future. I never ran around saying I wanted to be an astronaut or a teacher or anything really.

I loved animals and so I would vaguely say on occasion that the idea of being a vet might cross my mind, but I was never all crazed about it (and the urge passed after the first time I saw the vet take my dog's temperature). Every year when we would watch the Miss America pageant I would say I wanted to be Miss America, but what I really meant was I wanted to wear the pretty dresses, because the rest of the pageant was stupid. Once we had a career day at school and the physical therapist was really neat and for about a week I though that would be a nifty future, but then I got distracted by something shiny.

So I had no real ambitions as a child.
Wow that sounds just amazingly horrible. Horrible but true.

So most things in my life just sort of fell into my lap.
I started doing theater because of a scheduling error in 7th grade when I was placed into my brothers advanced play production class and he was placed in my typing class. The teacher let me stay and the next thing I knew I was playing Helena in A Mid Summers Nights Dream. After that I was hooked.
I chose my college because one day I was angrily faxing UIL forms (if you have ever had to do UIL paperwork you would know that it makes you very angry) and my director informed me suddenly that I would be attending a high school summer theater workshop that year, which was held at the college I would in turn go to because of the workshop.

So I got to college with every intention of being an actress. I had finally decided that was the future I wanted (which just proves how little we actually know about what we want out of life). I was all ready to make this my life and my future. Then I actually got to college.

We had to do a mandatory production laboratory pretty much every semester. The choices were the scene shop or the costume shop. I was never big on power tools really, or heavy lifting, and so the costume shop it was. At that point I had never really sewn before. I think I might have replaced a button, and at one point when I was like 8 my Great Aunt Frances had me make the ugliest pillow in the history of the universe, but that was the extent of my sewing knowledge.

After my first year though, and spending at least three hours a week in the shop, I was passingly decent. What can I say I am a quick learner and apparently I had a natural inclination toward sewing. Then my first summer rep I did not get cast and so I spent 8 hours a day in the costume shop for two months straight. Needless to say that by the end of that summer I was pretty well on my way to knowing what I was doing.

Before I knew it I had been spending more and more time in the costume shop. Then I was taking costume design classes and talking to the costuming teacher and shop foreman about all manner of sewing type things, and suddenly realized while I loved performing, I really rather preferred to be in the costume shop than on the stage.

And thus began my journey into seamstressing. I just sort of fell into it and I love it. I love designing costumes for new faire characters, mine and other peoples. When I got to finally be part of the costuming staff I was elated. It made my little heart sing. When I get to sit down and geek with other seamstresses over patterns, or new sewing techniques, or even drool over tensionless sergers (yes they exist), it makes me super happy.

And in the end I think that is how life really is. We can plan and plot all we like, but when it comes down to it, we end up where we fall. Life grows on us when we are not looking. I am not saying this is where I will end either. I am still alive and still growing and waiting to see what I fall into next.

I suppose there is still plenty of time to dream about what I want to be when I grow up.