sometimes it's extremely hard to talk about certain things. for me, i think one of those things is my career. by my second semester of senior year in college i knew i didn't want to go into the entertainment industry but i didn't know exactly what i wanted. i can't really explain how i chose to be a social worker but i sort of fell into it. one day, it popped into my head and the next day i was writing admissions applications for graduate school. i never thought i'd be the person who didn't know what career i wanted; i though for sure i'd end up in film. i know even a couple of years ago i would have never seen myself where i am now but i guess that's how life is. so the question i always get is: why social work? i find myself working backward in answering that question. it's not so much that certain things happened up until the point i realized i wanted to be a social worker, rather, it was that now that i am becoming a social worker, what patterns in my life pointed to it? i always was the unofficial social worker among my friends. friends always came to me with their problems in hopes that i'd have a solution, not that i always did. when i think of a social worker, i don't think of myself. it's never settled into my identity. have i always enjoyed helping people? no. do i want to now? yes. i'm not the one who stops to help the old lady across the street or hands spare change to the homeless man on the side of the road although i do think that i have many strengths to bring to the table. still it scares me when people say "it takes a certain kind of person." what kind of person is that because i never thought it was going to be me. i think i'm as selfish as anyone else but i know that if i'm going to do something with my life it has to be something important enough for me to get up in the morning.

i guess my main concern is that i wasn't meant to be a social worker. that it wasn't innately built into my biological makeup and that maybe i was meant to be a film director or a lawyer. whose to say? but i DO think that things happen for a reason and i'm hoping that's the case here. sometimes i look at myself and ask, "am i a social worker?" but who is really born into a certain profession or disposition? MAYBE i'm just not who i was meant to be yet. that's kind of a crazy thought but it just might be. i don't want to bend over backward to be something i'm not but i think that it's something i do want in the future. i don't think anyone truly knows for sure what they want to be in life. i think people change their minds all the time--even people who are happy with their careers. we all wish we could have been a million things.

the heart of the social work profession is RELATIONSHIPS. i've always struggled with them. from the very start of my life, i've had ups and downs with people. i'm not an easy person to start a relationship with if i'm really honest with myself (which i try to be). although i've always been an introvert, i've longed to make connections with people as i'm sure most all humans do long for but of course, it's not always as easy as wanting something.

can i really help someone? me with all my own problems? i know that i just have to remember that i can't be perfect and that no one is but i'd like to be excellent at my career. now i just thought of something: my interest in film has always led back to stories of human struggles (real stories). not science fiction, not action. dramedies because life is filled with both the funny and the sad. my first experience with a social worker was actually in a movie: "white oleander." if i can truly empathize and make connections with these film characters, i know i have the capacity to makes things connections with real people.