I don't know that there is one why to my life, I think there are many that expand in many different directions. But I do know when I realized what I wanted to do with my life, what would have me stop stagnating and start moving forward, what would have me feel fulfilled to go to work and make the difference I want to make.
Story Time:
As a kid, I was keen on understanding and helping kids younger than me and kids with special needs. Recess in winter in grade 2 would often see me walking the halls with a parapalegic friend. Recess in grade 5 would see me in the special ed portable playing simple games with the autistic twins in my class or pushing them on the swings. In grade 6, I was pushed to start tutoring classmates in math. I continued to tutor math and english well into adulthood.
I came out of high school and went right into electrical engineering, which failed. After a year off and some deliberation between Early Childhood Education and Business, I decided to go back for business, because I wasn't sure I liked working with kids. Business school went well, my co-op term helped me find a love for marketing and I started a small business helping people and businesses with their social media presence.
A year and a half in, I ran out of money and ended up moving out of town to my parent's house just so I could stay afloat. They insisted I find a job and I was still planning on moving to Europe. I thought I could go as an au pair, but since I didn't have childcare references, that wouldn't work. I put my name out as a babysitter and within a week, I'd landed my first job as a nanny. Within a month, I was in love with the little boy and had a second family on a very part time basis. I worked with those kids for a year (both 1-2yos) before moving across the country for a full time live in position with a 6 and 9yo.
The live in nanny job was horrible. I was lied to about the situation, I was manipulated into staying when I wanted to quit, I did everything I could to not be in that house if I didn't have to be. The boys never stopped testing my limits and it broke me. Multiple times I'd send them off somewhere so I could just sit and cry. I finally escaped at Christmas and resolved to go back to school to finish the business diploma. At least I'd have something then.
At school, I discovered a love for statistics. In my second semester back, I realized that I missed the kids. Unfortunately, my mental health had taken a huge hit and I was on a waitlist for surgery, so there was no way I'd be able to find a family to work for any time soon, though I did look.
I finally got myself sorted, after graduating. I did a semester of Child and Youth Care only to realize that I am not cut out for university (why else did it take me 6 years to complete a 2 year diploma?), so I worked full time until my surgery. I spent 6 months job searching for a full time nanny position. Finally, 2 weeks before I was due back at my retail job following my surgery, I found a family.
They were perfect, the kids were the right ages, the parents had the same kinds of ideas about childrearing as I did, the parents had hired nannies in the past and knew how to treat and pay someone to look after their kids. I was in love before I even started.
A month in, I started to realize that something wasn't quite right. It was the middle of summer and my older kid wasn't playing the way I expected him to. He was resistant to things that most kids jump in to. He would have meltdowns that would last hours and went beyond what I'd expect out of a 3yo, when he was on his way into grade 2. When school started, more red flags were raised. I started asking questions of other peoples observations, doing research. At the end of October, just 4 months after starting to work with them, I decided to approach the parents and was working on drafting an email to them, when they asked my opinion of what the teacher had said. When I corroberated her opinion, they started the ball rolling for diagnostics.
By January, we were all in it up to our necks, doing everything we could to get him to the place he needed to be. He's still not there and it will be a lot of work for everyone, especially him.
January was when I realized it though. I realized that I wanted to work with kids with special needs, and not as a nanny. It took until June for me to realize that I needed to go back to school for this. I'm now working on getting my own diagnosis so I can be better placed to succeed in school. I'm also working on learning how to study and write papers. In 2 years, I'll be ready to go back to school, very likely for Occupational Therapy and ASL.