It's Just a Dream

When people ask you what you want to be when you grow up, what is the truth that you don't give them? What is that dream that you have that's too embarrassing to admit to having. Too far fetched to be grounded in reality?

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I'm finally back in Texas after all of this coronavirus madness. The flight back was low-key anxiety inducing, but now that I'm back in my bright orange room with the soft carpet that my feet could never forget, well... I don't know. It feels weird.

I spent so much time in this room. So. Much. Time. Laughing, crying, dancing, thinking, hating, just being in this room, that I forgot what it felt like. It feels almost like I'm a guest, a tourist, at one of those historical homes, where you get to walk through the halls imagining yourself as a ghost watching another lifetime play out in all of the empty rooms.

To be fair, it also feels nice. Maybe nice is the wrong word, but it feels like an old comfort. The same feeling I get when I eat cheap mac-n-cheese or watch Ice Age. It feels like I'm meeting a person I used to know. But that person is just... me.

My mom took out all of the books and trinkets on my shelves and stowed them in my closet for now. She doesn't want them to get contaminated with my sneeze droplets or something. It's fine, I don't particularly mind it, but I have to admit that it does make the room feel even more empty. Even more like a blank slate.

There's a big white bookshelf waiting to be filled with new knowledge. Decorative hexagons on my wall, begging to house new knick knacks from my adventures, with new memories in an old shell. An old body. An old self.

The weirdest thing is probably that I haven't really seen how different my house is from the last time I've been here. When I got back from the airport, I walked straight upstairs and to my room. I didn't have the time to look. I didn't want to add new dirt to the old dust.

I've been kind of moody since I got back. I don't know if it's the solitary confinement or simply the fact of looking around my room to see old nightmares wander, but it's made me really unproductive. It's made me confused all over again. My mom keeps asking about whether I got a new job or not, and I know it's just her way of worrying without letting me worry. Or at least her attempt to.

Sigh.

What am I doing?

Not here in Texas, and not here, in my room. What am I doing? In life. Why am I here?

I tried so hard to be the good kid. The teacher's pet. The "one who made it". I tried so hard to just do what I was told, to the point where I never stopped and asked myself why I was told. And coming back to my old room, my old habits, my old self? It's made me want my old dreams again.

Sure they never really left my body. I've always wanted to be an artist, a singer, a dancer. I've always wanted to be an actor, to live multiple lives in this one, to pretend to be the person that I'm not. Because maybe if I pretended hard enough, I could make it? I could convince the world that I'm the good kid, the teacher's pet, the "one who made it"? Maybe if I could convince the world I could convince myself?

I don't know what I'm rambling on about lol. Honestly I've never known. I just write when I feel that specific tug in my chest, and I start typing, and I let my thoughts take me by the hand down another windy path in my mind.

I don't know who I want to be, to be honest. I don't even know who I was, to be honest. And I know that's okay. Because no one does. Everyone's pretending. Everyone is trying to convince the world that they're the ones who made it. And I know that. I know it's just acting. The world's a stage. Life's a show.

But I hope one day I can be honest with myself and tell myself who I really want to be. What I really want to do. I hope that one day, I can hold my own hand and mend my own heart and let the nightmares find a new home. Because every time I ask myself who I want to be, the answer is clear: I want to be a good person. I want to be the good kid, the teacher's pet, the "one who made it". And a part of me knows that it's possible, that it's real even.

But that's when the doubt creeps back in. That's when the old nightmares come knocking and the pretending just feels like a lie and I feel like a guest in my past life. I can run across the world, but your past is always close behind. And I know I should be looking forward to my future, right? That's what everyone says. Plan for the future, what are you going to be when you g r o w u p ?

But I don't think that's helpful. It's just as uncomfortable to meet the future selves in your head. I introduce myself sometimes to them. It feels exciting and new and like I'll be the "one who made it" someday. But to be honest, it's just as much a lie, pretending, an act. It's just as much me being unfocused and distracted and superficial. You gotta work for it, I tell myself. That future self you just introduced yourself to? They're here to collect the debts you owe to your dreams. So stop inventing realities in your head. Stop confusing yourself by thinking too much. Just be. Just do what you can, when you can. That's all anyone can ask for. And ask yourself this: Who am I as I've grown up?

It's not some distant future or some question in the past. Who am I now? What am I doing?

I'm a philosophy political science double major with an interest in the arts. "So... what are you going to be after college," my mom asked me. "What are you going to actually do?"

The answer is I don't know. And that's not a lie. And I guess that's just going to have to be okay.