“When I grow up I want to be…” Answer as your 5-year-old self or as you are now.

When I was little, I wanted to be all kinds of things. At five, I crayoned a picture of my future self as a firefighter. A little later, in the hospital with asthma complications, I decided I’d grow up to be a respiratory therapist. By 10, I’d settled on journalism as a future career, solely because of my vague knowledge that journalists got to write for a living, but I did my high-school senior project on education because I thought I might like teaching elementary school, instead.

There are pieces of those dreams in what I do today (although there’s not any firefighting going on) and I certainly don’t want to switch it up any time soon. I’m more than a little grateful for the feeling of being in the right place, at least for now. Things will keep moving — I want to go to grad school soonish, for instance — but I think I’m facing in the right direction.

I’m reminded pretty often, though, that what I want to be isn’t just about my career.

I want to be good and kind and good for something. I would like to have children, maybe, I think. I would like to understand myself better and love a few people deeply, instead of loving many people a bit. I want to travel more, for business and pleasure, and I want to turn writing into a bigger and more coherent part of my life. I want to teach, maybe. I want more degrees.

Most of all, I want to be — not happy, exactly, but calm and aware and observant of everything going on around me.

I would like to be at peace.