Taken from the 365 Days of Writing Prompts book, under today’s date this is the prompt.

When you were 16,what  did you think your life would look like? Does it look like that? Is that a good thing?

No, my life looks nothing like I imagined it at sixteen. At sixteen I was just leaving school I gained good grades, I went down the traditional route to do academic study at A-Level I started to study sociology, English and media studies. I dropped out! The only real subject I really worked hard in was English. I really enjoyed sociology. But as a typical sixteen year old girl I had other ideas and got distracted. I dropped out and went to beauty school instead. I ended up finishing a make-up, hair, nail and beauty course. The creative person in me was born outside of writing, I have always loved fashion and beauty.

Back then, my idea of how my working life would be was to  become some kind of creative person working within make-up /fashion. I worked for a few years in salons and kept up the dream. Drooled over Vogue magazine and the like. Played around with make-up like there was no tomorrow. But life changed and I needed to earn a better living so I fell into an office role, kept working, loved what I was doing for so long and then started my degree worked, then did a teaching degree and started teaching, I kept writing… Then became an author.

I’m  thirty- four next month, the sixteen year old me would look at my “day job” now and say no way! A teacher??? You messed up! You should be doing make -up on every super model, TV- presenter, singer, song writer  out there by now.  A sixteen year old me would look at my job as a writer and be like wow, I never saw that coming. But maybe if you did not drop out of college to go to beauty school you may have done this earlier … 

At sixteen I imagined, I’d be living a much more glam life than I do now by the time I reached thirty- four LOL. I imagined I be flying all over the world working on projects, the main make-up artist for London fashion week each year, maybe even my own make-up range  and drinking an endless supply of Cosmopolitan cocktails. In reality  I’m a content and very happy  mum, writer,lover of make-up, fashion and beauty who indulges on You-Tube in her passion or sews the odd dress or skirt at home in the privacy of my living room. Is that a good thing? That my life is not one of  the most high flying, make-up artists or fashion designers out there earning mega bucks? Well, in a way yes as I probably would not be a very happy and content mum, writer and to be honest that’s fine with me as life feels about right. In my thirties I’ve felt the best I’ve ever felt, like fine wine life gets sweeter the older I get.

What were your dreams at sixteen??