Becoming Me

When I was young, I had dreams.

I had imagination.

Things I wanted to do.

Things I loved to do.

My imagination ran wild.

It ran wild like the wind.

Little did I know that life would slowly steal it away.

Bit by bit.

Bit by bit.

Then one day, as I got older, I found myself asking,

Where are the dreams?

Where is that imagination?

Has life really taken it away?

Or is it still there?

If I search within myself, will I find it again?

Will I get those dreams back?

I don’t know.

Should I try?

Can I try?

Do I even have the willingness to try?

I’m not excited about trying…

But I would love to try.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Would I be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t at least try to remember the dreams I had as a child growing up in Kumasi, in Ghana’s Ashanti Region?

Should I try?

Should I try and be a child again?

Should I find that imagination again?

Can I get there?

Will I ever get that childhood dream back?

I wish I could.

I wish I can.

Will I?

I might.

I don’t know.

But I think I’m going to try.

Life is about trying.

I wish I could go back to my eight-year-old self again.

I remember writing a story about the best holiday of my life.

My teacher applauded.

My classmates applauded.

Then someone asked me where I’d been.

The truth was…

I’d never been on holiday.

Not once.

It was all imagination.

And somehow, that little girl managed to wow a classroom with a story that wasn’t real, but felt real.

How I wish I could find that imagination again.

Today I stood by the ocean.

I watched the ripples of the waves come in and touch my feet.

And I found myself wondering…

How can these ripples change the course of my life?

How are these ripples connected to the imagination I had as a child?

Can one small ripple become something much bigger?

How I wish…

Evelyn Afia Owusu