The first time I was truly passionate about something was film. I discovered it in probably 10th grade in high school or so. I was lucky. None of my friends had any idea what they wanted to do. My brother didn't know what he wanted to do. I toyed with the idea of traveling for a bit and working in the industry here in LA and starting college later, if I needed to. I was severely over school - I was bored, rebellious, and too smart for my own good. I also really liked drugs. But I was mostly done answering to people and playing the game.

I got a 4.0 through high school not because I was smart or put 200% effort in. It was because I played the game. I went to class and did all my homework and respected the teachers and "opened" up to them. But I also spent any time I could not in class. If any of my classes had a substitute, was generally boring, had a test that I finished early, had group presentations, anything - I would leave class, go to my video class, talk to my teacher there and then either fuck around on facebook, edit, prep for something, or sneak out the back door and go wander around town. Our campus was closed but we had a little loading dock that opened passed the outer gate. As long as the security guards weren't right there, I could be in my car in 2 minutes flat. I really didn't like my time wasted. I would run errands or do other homework or grab lunch with my folks, grandmother, or boyfriend (who was already graduated). And then be back for the next period.

Anyways, I didn't think college was what I wanted to do. But everyone was applying to college so I applied to NYU and surprisingly got in. So I went.

Then my passion for film very quickly evaporated. I realize now that I was really passionate about was working with amazing people and creating amazing things - the medium mattered much less. It also turned out that theres a lot of shit you have to deal with before you get to simply create. Like months and/or years of organizational pre-production work. And money. And budgets. And begging. I hate begging. I just wanted to create stuff.

So I dropped out after 2 years (well, officially I took a leave of absence and really kept all my doors open). I worked on student films. I worked on editing projects for money to make ends meet. (My parents stopped the little bit of money they were sending me when I left school.) I hung out with a lot of people who were still being footed by their parents and let them buy the drugs. It was a fun time of my life. No money. Some drugs. Creating cool stuff. Editing all night and day. Every day was fresh. Sometimes I had to be in the studio at 9am. Sometimes I would buy a bottle of vodka and finish it by 9am. No shame NYC days. I wouldn't call it passion though. I never saw myself doing it for another month - but somehow I did it for almost a year.

Then I broke up with my boyfriend, took my security deposit and last $500 check and ran away to Australia. No idea what I was going to do with my life. I hung out with wildly successful people in their late-20s to early-30s. I've since discovered that that's the age people get their shit together, start making real money, and everything seems to work out awesomely. I wanted real money.

So I got home, got a job, was bored, created videos, did a LOT more drugs (since there were none in Australia). And then I discovered this whole creating shit on the computer thing. It's basically video editing without the need for large budgets and teams of people. It's creative and it's pretty and much quicker. So I taught myself how to design. And then HTML/CSS. Then JS. Now I'm creating full blown websites and working with shitty java backends and okay php/mysql shit and awesome node.js shit and I read every day about the absolutely amazing things people are creating with code. I get to take something I know nothing about, watch a couple tutorials, read a couple articles, and then create something I didn't even know I could create. It's epic. I don't get bored anymore. I love it. I love every day. I get to do something new every fucking day!

So, to answer your question - At 16 and then again at 23/24 and then who knows.