You, of Course

People used to ask me a question that always made my stomach tighten.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Even as a child, I found it bewildering.

Not who.

What.

As though I were meant to become a category.

A label.

A useful answer.

And I remember feeling a little panicked every time.

How should I know?

What does that even mean?

And if this matters so much, shouldn’t the adults already know the answer instead of asking me?

So I would turn to my father and ask:

“What am I supposed to be?”

And he would say, without hesitation:

You, of course.

That answer has stayed with me all my life.

Because in three simple words, he undid the fear hidden inside the question.

He did not hand me a profession.

He gave me back my personhood.

Not a what.

A who.

I did not have language for that then.

I only knew that when adults asked the question, something in me tightened. But when my father answered it, something in me loosened.

He made room for me to be a person before I became anything else.

And perhaps that is part of what children need most.

Not the pressure to define a whole life before they have lived it.

Not the anxiety of becoming useful quickly enough to reassure the grown-ups around them.

Not the feeling that their worth is waiting somewhere in the future, hidden inside the right answer.

They need room.

Room to wonder.

Room to notice.

Room to love what they love.

Room to become without panic.

Because a child already is someone.

Already alive.

Already bearing mystery.

Already carrying temperament, delight, sorrow, gift, and curiosity.

The oak tree is not ashamed to be a sapling.

The bird does not apologize for being young in the nest.

The child does not need to become a what before they are allowed to be a who.

And yet how often we teach them otherwise.

We ask them to name their future before they have even learned the shape of their own soul.

We ask for function before identity.

Category before character.

Usefulness before belovedness.

No wonder the question can feel frightening.

But my father, in his quiet wisdom, answered differently.

You, of course.

As if the truest calling was not to become something impressive, but to become more deeply, more honestly, more freely the person I was already being formed to be.

That answer feels truer to me now than ever.

Because the older I get, the less I believe that life is mainly about becoming a polished what.

It is about becoming a true who.

A person who loves well.

A person who sees clearly.

A person whose gifts serve rather than perform.

A person whose life leans toward beauty, mercy, courage, and joy.

And perhaps that is why the question still matters.

Not the old one:

What do you want to be when you grow up?

But the better one beneath it:

Who are you, already, that is still unfolding?

I think children know more about that than we give them credit for.

They do not ask first how to become legible to the world.

They ask why the sky is blue.

Why birds fly.

Why fish breathe.

They begin with wonder, not branding.

And maybe that is closer to wisdom than we know.

Maybe becoming is not first about choosing the right category.

Maybe it begins by paying attention to what makes you come alive.

What you love.

What you notice.

What breaks your heart open.

What kind of beauty keeps calling your name.

Perhaps that is where vocation begins too.

Not in panic.

Not in performance.

But in the slow recognition of the life already growing within you.

And perhaps this is part of how God calls us as well.

Not first by handing us a title,

but by calling us by name.

Not by asking us to become a useful what,

but by forming in us a beloved who.

So when I think back now to that childhood question and all the quiet fear it carried, I find myself returning again to my father’s answer.

Simple.

Steady.

Freeing.

You, of course.

And perhaps that is still the beginning of wisdom:

to become, by grace,

more fully and truthfully

the person love has already seen.

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Thank you for reading.

If this opened something in you too, I’d love to hear: who first gave you room to become yourself?

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© Gilda Wray. All rights reserved.