We all had these dream jobs in the past

My room in my parents‘ house is still reasonably intact. I also call it my time capsule. Everywhere you look, there are little books, clothes, and other items that immediately pull me back to the past. Recently, I found a diary from when I was about 8 years old. In big clumsy handwriting, I wrote out my future plans, and there were quite a few. I don't know why, but for some reason, at the ripe age of 8 and three-quarters (that always had to be mentioned), I was so busy with the career I would have when I grew up. I couldn't keep it from you, that carefully compiled list of dream jobs for an 8-year-old, so here it is: everything I wanted to be when I was younger (and you probably did too):

1. Teacher
My teacher was the absolute coolest. She always wore nice clothes, smelled of expensive adult perfume, and she got to write on the blackboard. I was sure: I would become a teacher. Until I found out that as a teacher, you had to have knowledge of just about everything and be good at math, then the fun was over.

2. Dolphin trainer
I went to the Dolphinarium once and immediately considered myself an expert. The fact that I also had all the dolphin merchandise you could find (pens, notebooks, and that glass figurine that every girl had) was reason enough for me to be accepted into the dolphin trainer academy.

3. Cashier
I wrote this in many friends‘ books: my dearest dream was to become a cashier at our local supermarket. There was something about being allowed to sit behind a cash register while you got to ’scan' all the products, which I found truly enchanting. You can surely understand how overjoyed I am now with the invention of self-scan checkouts.

4. Mother
I used to play a lot with those dolls. Clothes off, clothes on, a fake bottle in, and especially throwing them hard in the corner when I was done with them. I had it all planned out: by the time I turned thirty, I would have at least two children and would be fully immersed in motherhood. That I would turn 30 in just over a month and still absolutely enjoy that quiet house at the end of the day, I would have never believed back then.

5. Singer
Britney made me do it: there was a time when I desperately wanted to become a singer and I would do anything for it. In the end, I didn't get much further than a children's choir and the lead role in the final musical of group 8, but as part of my 2023 goals list, I recently started taking singing lessons, so who knows, this dream might still come true someday.

6. Hairdresser
Getting my hair done in a salon with nice products and stylish women every few months was the epitome of glamour for me. I don't know what happened to this dream, but I think the fact that you can really mess up people's hair had something to do with it, and as a nearly 9-year-old, I was absolutely not ready for that responsibility.

7. Flight attendant
With my mouth open, I watched Gwyneth Paltrow in ‘View from the Top’, where she tried to make it as a flight attendant for a luxury airline. I dreamed of making long trips and seeing the world, but the dream turned out not to be big enough. In the end, it was mainly about the (in retrospect, hideous) orange dress she wore on the movie poster, and I did manage to score that.