Someone else's dream (my own)
A few days ago I created an account on a website that automatically connected to an old Gravatar account. I realised this immediately because the profile picture changed to one I had uploaded to Gravatar almost 10 years ago and, wow, who is that? It was me, but a version that was living and planning things that are a little far removed from my reality today. (She was cool though, doing her best for sure)
But what really surprised me was that this Gravatar account had two blogs linked to it. Blogs I created and didn’t follow through (with only two posts each) and that I barely remember existed. In fact, it was a shock to learn that both were still online (blogs hosted on Wordpress can be immortal, I guess), but not so much a shock to learn that I still have some old blogs around the web. They were created when I was living in England, studying abroad for a year. at the time, I was studying Illustration (a dream of mine) and living in a different country (an even bigger dream of mine).
In one of the posts, I wrote a love letter to living abroad and how living in my home country, Brasil, was not for me. The funny thing is that, during the last months, I’ve been slowly coming to the conclusion that I really enjoy living in my country and that, perhaps, the idea of living abroad again is a dream of the past. This has always been so intrinsically connected to what i wanted in life, that making this change of life goal feels like a betrayal. But who exactly am I betraying?
I’ve been thinking often about how many of our life goals were made by people (our younger selves) who had very different perspectives and life experiences. What I desired when I was 15 was shaped by what I had experienced up until that age. By the time I was 25, I had another ten years of new moments and new discoveries to pile up on that. It seems more likely that these goals will evolve into something different rather than remaining exactly the same. And yet, I was clinging to the fact that I have to honor whatever it is I once believed was the best for me or would bring me the most happiness.
It’s strange to think that I’ll be a different person in the future. That in 10 years’ time, I’ll look at a picture of me from today and think “wow she had some hope and dreams that I don’t really care about anymore”. And yet, I love it. I love the fact that we evolve, that we are in constant transition, whether we like it or not. I don’t know what I’ll be like in the coming decades, but I know that there will be different versions of me. New versions with their own unique actions, thoughts and passions like the older ones. All valid, all accepting of the new versions ahead and thankful for the old versions left behind.
