Throughout my life, I have constantly been asked, “What do you plan to do with your life?” or “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Every formal family holiday and awkward run-in at the grocery store heeded one of these two painstakingly odd questions and I always dreaded them. Often my replies were mumbles of my newest guess on my inevitable future, but honestly, they were all fantasy-driven tales, given in hopes that I met the hidden expectation of the asker. But I have a secret: I find these questions to be total nonsense.

To everyone else I have seemed to reach the age of “grown up” and too often I am looked upon eagerly with expectations of having a plan detailing “what” I want to be. This thought never fails to leave me with an unsettled stomach – I feel anything but “grown up."

The question of “what” has always threatened me, making me feel limited in my ability to be defined. This left me to wonder why my label always had to include a profession or role. I have realized that what others were expecting as an answer were things that shoved me into a box, right next to the guy who accidentally blurted out “doctor” when his aunt posed him the “what” question. So, this is where I feel uncomfortable answering these questions. I don’t want to “grow up” into a “what," but rather a “who."

When stopping to reflect, not once have I been asked who I want to be when I grow up. The passersby of my life never cared to know the details of my person, but rather they reached for a label to attach to my name. So recently I have been thinking, who do I want to be, right now?

Yet, to be honest, if I was asked today “who” rather than “what," my answer would still be the same:

“I don’t know.”

In the grand scheme of things, I have not the slightest hint of who I aim to be at this “grown up” age, though I do know some of the details. I want to be a girl who loves, a girl who follows Christ with passion, a girl who motivates those around her, a girl who is inspired as much as she is inspiring, a girl who writes all night and sings all day, and a girl who orders decaf coffee at three in the afternoon. I want to be a girl who is comfortable not knowing “who” or “what."

When people look at me, I hope I won’t just have one label, or a small collection of them to describe the box I am squeezed in. Instead, when people look at me, I hope they will only see one thing: Hannah.