Fragments of dreams I once had

When I was a child, the future was a closet full of costumes. I'd be anything I'm interested in. I wore dreams the way girls wear colorful princess clothing—carelessly, joyfully, without fear that one day they might not fit. 

Every month, I became someone new. One moment I was a nurse bandaging invisible wounds on my stuffed toys as if I could stitch brokenness itself. The next, I was an astronaut picturing that I was jumping around the moon, playing with gravity.

Back then, I believed I could be anything I wanted—like a shapeshifter.

On some afternoons, I was a biologist pulling weeds just to witness the ants marching across the pavement, observing them as if they carried the secrets of the universe on their tiny backs—without caring if I got bitten by one of them. I would stare at the trees, amazed that even trees seemed alive in the same fragile way humans were. Curiosity lived inside me like a wildfire, every unanswered question was a matchstick.

Other days, I transformed into a physicist. I wrapped towels around my shoulders like white coats and spoke as if I had the highest IQ in the world. I thought intelligence was a mountain I could easily climb.

Then came the chemist phase. I painted a tomato using toothpaste and let it sit for days thinking it would turn into a squishy toy but only ended up in a stinky, messy, and sticky disaster. My friends and I even searched “How to make slime without borax?" on YouTube. The kitchen became my laboratory; the sink, my battlefield.

Sometimes, I wanted to become a teacher—not because I love school, but because I love lecturing my friends. I wanted to write on blackboards, create quizzes, and act intimidating. I loved the feeling of teaching someone what to do. I wanted to become someone who could shape minds like the way rivers shape stone.

And there were days I dreamed of becoming part of the army. I mean, it's really questionable for a girl like me, but I guess that's one of the perks of having a lot of male cousins. I used to play with them with their toy guns and their backyard became our battlefield as we made firing noises to shoot each other.

But perhaps the strongest dream of all was wanting to become a model. Not for fame, not for beauty. I was simply in my fashionable phase. I used to imagine a long pathway as my runway and glance at my imaginary fans.

My childhood was a sky crowded with kites, each dream pulling me in a different direction. Yet somehow, none of the strings hurt my hands. I was allowed to want everything. Nobody asked me to choose. Nobody reminded me that the future costs money, certainty, and sacrifice.

Children dream without deadlines.

But growing up is a slow theft.

Somewhere between report cards, expectations, and the terrifying question of “What do you want to be?" The fragments of my dreams began collecting dust in the museum of memories I never visited. The dreams that once danced like wildfire inside my chest slowly dimmed—struggling against the wind—as there was no fuel to light it up ever again.

Now, I am a teenager standing at the crossroads of adulthood, the world seems like gray ashes. It no longer feels like a huge closet full of clothes. It feels like it's a corridor full of doors that you can't open more than two of them in your life.

People ask me what course I want to take in college as though I should already know the shape of my entire future. And I smile. I laugh sometimes and casually say “Engineering.”

But truthfully, their questions feel like being told to read a book in a language I cannot understand. Because somewhere along the way, I stopped dreaming. Or maybe my dreams simply became too heavy to carry. 

The nurse disappeared into the noise of practicality. The biologist in me is buried six feet underground, decaying like a dead body. The physicist drove away using Newton's law of motion. The chemist evaporated like failed experiments. The teacher lost her voice. The soldier grew tired. The model lost her confidence.

Now, whenever people ask me what I want to become, my mind turns into an empty hallway. Silent. Echoing. Unanswered. 

It is strange to grieve dreams that never even happened. 

Sometimes I envy my younger self—the child who believed futures were clothes that could wear forever. She was fearless in the way only children can be. She did not know about failure yet. She did not know that growing older meant comparing yourself to classmates who already seem to have their lives planned. 

She did not know that one day, passion could disappear quietly, like a fire burning out after losing fuel. And maybe that is what hurts the most. Not that I no longer know what I want to become, but that I once loved to be many things. 

My childhood dreams were kites up in the sky, and all of them slipped from my hands. Eventually, they flew away, leaving only the marks the strings left in my hand. I just looked up at them and let the wind steer them higher and higher—toward the horizon.

Still, sometimes, late at night, I think about that younger version of me:

The little nurse healing stuffed toys; 

The little girl staring at the moon; 

The little biologist observing random plants and insects; 

The little physicist experimenting with nonsense; 

The little chemist mixing random liquids in plastic cups; 

The little teacher writing imaginary lessons; 

The little soldier pretending to be brave; and

The little model posing in front of mirrors. 

I guess the little shapeshifter never lost her magic. She still lives somewhere inside me, curled up quietly between memory and longing. 

And perhaps this confusion I carry now is not emptiness at all. Perhaps it is merely the space between chapters. After all, forests look lost when viewed from inside them. 

Maybe I am not dreamless. Maybe I am simply standing in the hallway before the next door opens. Maybe the future is not angry at me for being uncertain. Maybe it is waiting patiently, like how the moon waits for the little astronaut I once was.