Do I really have to think of a title?

My name is Anna (pronounced Ahn-nuh) though I will respond to the more traditional pronunciation. When I was younger, I decided that my name was boring and thought that I would take matters into my own hands. After some deep consideration and careful planning, I proceeded to tell everyone in my preschool class that my name was in fact, Teapotta, an original name I perhaps thought was fitting for me. To my mom’s amusement and chagrin, I still have some craft projects from the Teapotta days with my self-chosen name written on the back.
If anything, this story showcases my quirky nature and sense of independence. The accusatory statement of “You’re weird” is often met with the enthusiastic response of “Thank you!” I love being strange and watching people’s reactions to my occasional goat noises and inexplicable statements.
As an only child with no relatives my age, I grew up in an adult centered world, never offered the option of sitting at the kids’ table. My mom often likes to say that I was born 40 and grow more middle-aged each year. In middle school, my lack of a social life or friends outside of a conventional school setting left me to fill my free times with books. I befriended the characters within the pages and let my imagination run with the plot.
An early love of reading and my creative nature led me to believe for many years that I would become a writer. The summer before my sophomore year attended a two week creative writing camp with similarly minded people. I absolutely loved having the space to write and share my stories with others and felt like I grew significantly a writer. In spite of, or perhaps because of this experience, I realized that writing was not the career path for me. I am simply not cut out for the long, grueling hours spent in front of a blank page, squeezing my brain for inspiration. My love of reading and writing continues but my idealized career path had vanished.
           Like most of my peers, the casually presented question “What do you want to do in life?”gives me the chills. Just because I'm on the newspaper staff of The Beat of the Drum doesn't necessarily mean I want to be a journalist. This sense of unknowing on a threshold of possibilities frankly scares the crap out of me but also elicits a feeling of excitement. At this point, I can be nearly anything I want. And though I realize that this has limits within the reasonable confines of my abilities (for example, with my extreme phobia of needles, it will be unlikely that I will become a doctor or tattoo artist) my lack of certainty for the future ensures a plethora of possibilities.
Though at times I feel undirected, there are flashes of clarity in my life. I recently attended a week long leadership training seminar through the nonprofit, Generation Waking Up, on Whidbey Island with my friend, Lara.
After that experience, I feel inspired to do the vague, philosophical and often cliched idea of “good” in the world. I’m planning on opening a Thrive Hub (something I will talk about more in my second blog post) and hopefully, in the future, traveling to spread more of this undefinable “good”.
   Other than that, have I mentioned that I love cats?