My mom asked me last night if younger Ariana would be proud of who I’ve become. The truth? Probably not.

When I was a child, all I did was sing. I wrote silly lyrics, I belted out theatre tunes, I attempted (unsuccessfully) to replicate Ariana Grande’s riffs. If you’d asked me where I’d be in a decade, I’d say I’d be starring in a Broadway musical or touring the country as a world-renowned pop star.

Well, I’m still singing. I’m double majoring in music and journalism, but in the most outrageous turn of events, my strongest career aspirations have pivoted toward the latter.

And I’m so glad they have.

In high school, I ate, slept and breathed music. I’d spend hours in the choir room, hours more practicing, late evenings rehearsing for chamber choir or whichever play I found myself in, and then I’d sleep, wake up and do it all again.

In my junior year, I was at my musical peak. I got accepted to All State and All Eastern, and I got one of the leads in my school musical. There was no doubt in my mind that the life of a performer was the life for me. But of course — the floor is so far beneath you when your head’s in the clouds.

And then senior year happened, and I watched my world fall apart. I got whooping cough (yes, it still exists), and I couldn’t sing for almost an entire year. My college audition season went horribly, and I didn’t get a part in my senior musical.

Particularly seeing how much of a toll my musical failures took on me, several of my friends and mentors encouraged me to consider alternate options — particularly, journalism. In addition to my musical undertakings, I’d always had a passion for writing. By the time I applied for college, I’d written four novels and several opinion pieces for Newsday.

My writing was the one thing that never made me feel bad about myself. It was the one talent I never had to doubt. I never had to compare myself to others in that regard.

Perhaps that was why writing just wasn’t good enough for me. It was private and personal, not centered in the spotlight. I recently realized that one of my most fatal flaws was also one of the reasons I felt I needed to be a singer: I had (and still have) a need to be praised, a need for immediate approval. The sound of applause whenever I’d hold a note just long enough or the radiating laughter when I’d say a comedic line just right was my drug — and the withdrawal was lethal.

The worst mistake I ever made was placing my entire self-worth on my vocal ability, because once I got sick and couldn’t sing anymore, I felt as though I wasn’t anything. I felt as though my whole life was crumbling before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

As college rejections began to roll in, it became pretty clear — or so I thought — that I wouldn’t be going to music school as I’d always dreamed. Several people told me to study journalism, and while my love for writing hadn’t faded, to do so felt like conceding. It felt like giving up. But what other choice did I have?

Then I took a week-long trip to Japan with my best friend. I read a fortune while abroad, and it said something along the lines of, “You’ve been traveling on the wrong path, but you’re about to embark on the one you were meant to be on all along.”

So I started to come to terms with the fact that maybe a career in music just wasn’t in the cards for me. It hurt so horribly that I fully intended to never do theatre again after graduating high school. I didn’t think I could bear it.

And then I got into my dream school: the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. The audition had been one of very few I’d gotten in before I got sick. All the heartache I’d suffered, all the rejection I’d faced — suddenly it didn’t matter. I was still going to get my flowers. I was still going to be a music major. I was still going to make little Ariana proud.

When I started at UM, I decided to add a minor in journalism just in case. That minor became a second major, and that second major became my new dream. I’ve found success in all the ways I could hope, but more importantly, I’ve found self-gratification in simply being proud of myself for even the smallest wins. I am equally proud of myself when I secure a leadership position on a student media outlet as when I finish writing a simple think piece for my blog.

Once past the confines of high school, I realized there was more to life than simply trying to shape up to your peers or to the version of yourself you’d always been told you had to be. When everyone around you is getting into schools you couldn’t even pass the first round of auditions for, you feel like you are nothing beyond the rejection you faced. When your entire world is settled within the portrait you painted in your youth, a single stroke outside of the lines feels like a betrayal to your younger self.

When you exit that box and you start to explore the larger world around you, you find that there are a million paths to happiness and there are a million more ways to define personal success. By allowing myself to explore new avenues, I found that journalism just might have been my truest passion all along. I’m still creating, I’m still telling stories and most vitally of all, I’m using my pen to do good.

But what that fortune in Japan didn’t tell me was that changing paths doesn’t mean you have to completely abandon the road you’ve traveled thus far. By lifting the weight of music being my whole reason for being, I’ve rediscovered the reason I started singing in the first place: because I love to, not because I need the gratification it can bring.

So yes: Dreams can change, but your earliest aspirations don’t have to die. And in all honesty, no, little Ariana probably wouldn’t be thrilled with the outcome. She’d hoped she’d be on a Disney show by the time she was fourteen, headlining Madison Square Garden by sixteen and starring as Zoe Murphy in Dear Evan Hansen by twenty.

But then again, little Ariana also wanted to become a fairy. I’m not killing off my inner child — I’m helping her grow. I’m not depriving her of her wings — I’m showing her a new way to fly.

words&photo_ariana glaser