Weekend Challenge/Dream/Childhood
My Childhood Dream Was To Be…I Don’t Know
Sometimes what you don’t know won’t hurt you
A Taste for Life Weekend Challenge: #22
Whenever I hear a 5 or 6 year-old girl who can confidently tell the world what she wants to be when she grows up, I am in awe.
And when she would not stop there, even justifying her ambition? I wonder if she knows what she’s talking about.
How could she talk about chasing a rainbow, when she could not even spell the word r-a-i-n-b-o-w.
And made me think of what I had dreamed to be when I was her age.
What I had was a daydream that — time run as fast as it can — I just want to go home.
How could I think of — ten years from now, when the farthest my mind could think of was not more than the 12-year-old me?
How would I know what I wanted to be, when merely hearing Mrs. Castillo’s husky voice, my knees would tremble?
Should my mom have asked me what I wanted to be? What mother would want her little girl to grow up so fast and be a woman?
Should my dad have asked me? He still had the present to think about. Why would he fill his hands with the future?
Fast forward to the — I am not a child anymore, and I asked myself: In not having a childhood dream, did I gain a friend or a foe?
Whenever life puts me on the edge, it’s because I’m a late bloomer in the dreamland and stayed too long in neverland.
Maybe if I had a dream when I was 6 and not 15, then I had enough time to ponder and not be in panic mode. I hadn’t wasted time and hit life’s bull’s eye in a single go.
But most of the time, I am glad it turned out this way. I would have trapped myself in a box of dreams crafted by the hands of a Kindergarten and would be blaming myself for entrusting my future into the mind of a 6-year-old me.
My two cents’ worth
It’s okay for a child to have a dream if it’s all a product of her/his observation or perception in life. But if it’s a product of the wants, frustration, and imagination of everyone around, I think it became a burden to a child. It’s like giving a child a responsibility ahead of adulthood.
