With a move likely in their future, my parents started cleaning out their attic this week. Between the embarrassing baby pictures, coloring pages that eliminated any hopes of an art career before I could walk and other knickknacks were writings I’d done as a first grader.

One in particular is a story I put together about the fairly non-existent rivalry between the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins, considering the teams play each other as often as Alabama and Georgia play one another in the SEC. However in our household, the Cowboys were my team and the Dolphins were my dads. I wrote about how when they played, we’d sit on opposite couches with our arms crossed.

Dad would always say “Come on son, let’s watch the game. Miami is on TV.”

Not understanding and not wanting anything to do with the Dolphins, I’d always reply, “Dad, that’s YOUR-ami, not MY-ami.”

To a toddler, the Ami Dolphins made a lot of sense.

Watching those games is where I came up with my first childhood dream — being the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.

Luckily I had writing to fall back on.

I used to keep scorebooks from age 3 or 4 on, documenting the scores and stats of NFL and college games. I’m sure somewhere in a deep corner of the attic those notebooks still exist.

Although journalism isn’t a bad career in any right, some parents might have told me to think again when I told them I wanted to be a writer. There are other careers out there with more free time and a better chance of striking it rich, but they never countered.

I’m at the start of what I hope is a long and prosperous career, but I know my parents will always be there for support if I need a little help along the way. They’ll celebrate 27 years of marriage next month, an accomplishment worth reflecting on.

At 25, it’s way too early in my career to look back it on it, but I hope to steal at least one of the writings mom found and use it as motivation for when the length of a long workweek starts to wear me down. They serve as a reminder that I’ve been working toward this career from a very early age and that there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.