{"id":5383,"date":"2022-02-01T01:02:55","date_gmt":"2022-02-01T07:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/?page_id=5383"},"modified":"2022-02-01T01:03:51","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T07:03:51","slug":"clerks-corner","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/clerks-corner\/","title":{"rendered":"Clerk’s Corner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In Junior High, I was expected to have a more realistic answer than \u201cgirl stunt rider\u201d. The old saying \u201cyou can be anything you want to be\u201d is a lie. So, I changed my story to \u201cTeacher in the Special Education program\u201d and I stuck with that for a while… Until I was about 15 working in the family restaurant when I was serving a group of adults with developmental disabilities. The reality of what I took for granted everyday hit me like a brick wall and I had to walk away because the tears would not stop. Nope.

I tried all the classes they offered as I headed into High School to try and answer the dreaded question. Sewing Class \u2013 My skirt, which was supposed to fit me, barely fit a Barbie doll. Final grade? A solid D and I think all 68 points came from \u201cparticipation\u201d.

Foods class \u2013 I set the oven on fire when I failed to pay attention to directions and put a rising yeast stollen in the oven and realized too late that the dough was supposed to make a stollen, 6 rolls, and a loaf of bread. Final grade? A solid D with a note from the teacher (who happened to have had my dad in Foods Class many years prior) that read \u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe you come from a family with such natural talent.\u201d I\u2019m 100 % sure I only passed because Mrs. Collins adored my father.

Child Care \u2013 A class where we were actually responsible for the care of pre-school aged children. After the first couple weeks, the little one I had been spending time with was only saying \u201ccaca\u201d, the Spanish word for poop. But he wasn\u2019t Spanish. Nor was his family. I scraped a C out of that class.

Journalism \u2013 The teacher called me a \u201cmenace to the entire profession\u201d. Ouch.
Physical Education \u2013 No. A hard no. Changing clothes messed up your hair and makeup. No one wants to sweat in 2nd<\/sup> hour. Just no. Dodgeball is not for me. Is it possible to fail PE? Yes.

College went better and led me to a 30-year career in a profession I loved \u2013 until I didn\u2019t love it anymore.
Then I had to decide again; \u201cWhat do you want to be when you grow up?\u201d This time around, my answer was clearer and more definitive.
When I grow up, I want to be happy.
I want to be an inspiration.
I want to be a leader.
I want to be appreciated.
I want to be positive.
I want to be trustworthy and reliable.
I want to be fun.
I want to be a helper.
I want to be dedicated and passionate.
I want to be a bright light on someone\u2019s dark, cloudy day.
I want to be the person that is thankful for all the good things in my own span of control.
I want to be the one that encourages those who can cook and sew and celebrates all the things others are good at that I am not.
I want to be the one that finds a use for the raised crack in the sidewalks \u2013 they make for great wheelies!
\u00a0
Next year, next month, next week I might have a whole new list of what I want to be. But there\u2019s one thing that I know won\u2019t be on that list:

Grown up – if it means you\u2019re done trying to figure it all out!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5383","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5389,"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5383\/revisions\/5389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}