Umisha KC
Editor
Someone recently asked me what my dreams were. They told me to think about what I really wanted, no restrictions.
This question, for the first time in a very long time, made me stop and think. What is it that I really want in a world where nothing is impossible? If you had asked me this question maybe a decade ago, I would have said beauty, popularity and, in an effort to appease the gods of congeniality, world peace. Four years ago, I would have said something like fame (YouTubers were still respectable then, you guys) or an impossible sum of money (and world peace).
Now, though, in the simplest of terms, my dream is to not fear the future. (In fear of having strangers know my sincerest dreams, I am going to refrain from sharing it in detail in this column. I love you all dearly, readers, but we can hardly consider this to be a friendship, can we?)
You see, 22 is an extremely weird age. At least, for me. I have new teeth coming in (with or without wisdom is TBD), I have all these responsibilities, and I have to leave this cocoon of a campus in a few months when this is all I have known for years. People my age, and in some horrifying cases younger than me, seem to have things figured out while I feel like I am sorely losing in a game I just found out I was supposed to be playing.
Don’t get me wrong, I have plans. On my best days, they seem foolproof and doable. On other days, I feel like a fifth grader attempting an eight grader’s math worksheet: scared to my bones. Most of the time my plans seem irrelevant in a world that seems to be actively dying in front of my very eyes. When not worrying about climate change, elections and the future (or the lack thereof), you can find yours truly frantically Googling graduate schools.
It’s very easy to be scared of the unknown. Believe me, I should know. I’d like to think fears go away with age but I am more scared now to move away from a state I’ve lived in for a couple of years than I was scared to move whole continents when I was 19. The older I get, the more I know how big the world is and how small I am. Fears, I have learned, don’t go away. They only evolve. The key, maybe, is to not let that fear stop you from living your life and dreaming big. But, then again, what do I know?
I don’t have the answers. Honestly, I’m not sure if I’m even asking the right questions. What I do know is my dreams have changed with where I am at life. I’d like to think my dreams have matured right alongside me. Maybe in a couple of years I will laugh at my current dreams or maybe I’ll be living them. Who’s to know? I certainly don’t. Until then, I hope I don’t stop dreaming. I hope the same for you.