Neat thread, Trish. What did I want to be? I'll go chronologically:

I vaguely remember wanting to be a school bus driver because I loved my kindergarten bus driver, Al.

Julia made me want to be a chef, Harriet made me want to be a spy, Peggy made me want to be an Olympic figure skater, Laura made me want to be a "lady pioneer", and I sort of remember wanting to be a Hillbilly, a Brady, or a Partridge. Exit elementary school.

By junior high my interests took on an unbridled passion for being the next Karen Carpenter, a commercial baker, or sadly, a baby sitter. I had discovered that I wanted jobs that fit me, not that I could fit into.

With a bit more exposure to the world via the sophisticated society of high school, I finally embraced my secret love of the English language and devoted myself to it completely —when I wasn't doing other, more entertaining stuff.

I knew that my career would somehow involve writing and that it did. My appreciation for order and precision led me toward the technical writing field which I mingled with the marketing mix to land myself in marketing research. Then, there was that whole new layer of idiot savant analytical skills, no one warned me that I'd like it!