World famous actress. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. The president of the United States.

You could call my childhood dreams ambitious. You could call them outlandish.

The actress phase came after the play in 1st grade. Someone plopped me on a stage with a set of angel wings in front of a crowd of parents. I faked giant, crocodile tears, and the laughs were like a drug. I'd spend hours at home trying to turn on the waterworks for real, preparing for my Academy Award-winning moment.

The Pulitzer came next, sometime after my 3rd and 4th grade teachers let me know they saw something in my writing. I started clearing a spot on my shelf, just in case.

I’m not sure where or when the presidential aspirations set in. Was it when I learned that my grandfather had been a long-time local politician? Apples don’t fall too far, after all.

Or maybe it was after I learned that writing political speeches could be a bona fide career? I’d start with writing them, I reasoned, before moving on to giving them.

Clearly it was some time before I drafted the “Jeanne was last seen …” line in my high school yearbook, the one forecasting my inaugural speech.

Ambitious? Outlandish? Take your pick. None of this will ever happen.

Hollywood doesn’t need any more overactors. The Pulitzer jury isn’t handing out awards for “best tractor parade coverage.” And after a couple decades of covering town board meetings, I’m more than happy to give D.C. a wide berth.

We were walking home from the polls last week when my husband’s phone lit up with a FaceTime call. It was our 21-year-old, calling from college.

They weren’t calling about their grades or a bill that needed to be paid.

They were sniffling and coughing, their throat sore and their muscles achy. They'd spent all day in bed, in and out of feverish dreams.

They didn’t need anything, they said. They just wanted Mom and Dad.

We walked into the house huddled over the phone together, asking the questions you ask when you’re four hours away from your sick kid. When’s the last time you ate something and kept it down? Are you drinking enough water? What’s your temperature? Do you need anything? (They didn't.)

We stayed on the line long after we’d run out of questions.

At 21, they’re old enough to sign a lease, old enough to vote, old enough to live a whole life four hours away, old enough to handle calling out from work and emailing their professors so they could sleep their way through the worst of a cold without calling home.

They called anyway.

None of my childhood dreams came true. I just never thought to dream this one.