To Be Somebody Who Is Happy

March 18, 2020 | Fiction only

---

When I was a kid I just thought I was nobody.

I don't have fancy dresses and no fancy toys and unlike other children I don't have fancy dreams. Other children believe that they can fly farther than the sky like superheroes and have super powers or like an astronauts watching planets moving around the sun, some imagined they were princesses in kingdoms enjoying parties with their ball gowns or even supermodels ready to pose with their trendy clothes to be posted on magazines. If ordinary kids imagined themselves doing this then probably I might be a peculiar one.

But of course as a kid I also play outdoor games, I love seeing myself with grins in my faces, I love listening to my laughter and of my playmates too. But then, I still had the thought of being nobody. I grew up slender and scanty, quite and reserved. I believe I can never be like my sister's, who is intelligent and lovely. People around adore how great she was. I wasn't even lovely and my IQ is normal. Before I thought I can't be like her and now I firmly believe I will never and I don't wanna be like her, again I don't wanna be like her.

One day I was walking pass the street going school when a woman suddenly spoke to me with hatred saying 'you have a cancer'. There were times she even calls me ugly when we cross paths. That woman by the way is my godfather's washerwoman and she hates me and my family back then maybe because she was jealous that I and my family was loved so much by my godfather.

And by that moment, I hanged myself as I continued walking while trying to register in my brain her words. WelI, I don't cry, I am pretty naïve, as a child I let things pass because the hell I care and the hell they care about nobody. But then I thought maybe I am an ugly child but no I don't have a cancer, maybe I'm just nobody. And I may be naïve, but somehow and some time in my life it affects me, I think it is true that we are shaped by who's and what's around us.

So when I arrived at school people are now trying to ask each of my mates and other kids about their dreams since my kindergarten graduation is fast approaching and it was like a cute or maybe a silly culture to ask kids about it and well they all spoke of their beautiful childish dreams.

And while listening to them, I began to ask myself the same question, what do I want to become when I grow up? The question was hovering my head and my head was floating, for unlike all the other children I don't have fancy dreams and if this is how ordinary kids do think then probably I might be again a peculiar one.

But my teacher suddenly approached me asking the same question. Then I spoke rapidly with no obvious blank spaces on each words while turning my back from her, 'I-wanted-to-become-a-princess-race-car-driver-inventor-astronaut-doctor-president-beautiful-smart-adorable-be-loved-like-my-sister-the-world-genius...' .

I did spoke so much and she cut me off telling in a very audible voice, 'wow you definitely have quite a lot of dreams', she just keep on nodding her head many times. I think I almost have spoken all the dreams of my classmates that time.

And then I walked, faced her again and said, 'honestly, maybe I just wanted to become somebody teacher’.

Then she asked me still nodding her head- 'what somebody exactly?.

Then I told her, 'I do not like to become a princess or a race car driver or like my sister or smart and beautiful. I just want to become the ‘somebody’ of my own, lovely on my own and definitely with no cancer of course and somebody who would not listen to people who can afford to unloved anybody elses because on the first place they are unhappy and they have unloved themselves'.

Ever since I was a kid I don't give a damn to fancy dreaming, all my life I just want to be the somebody who is happy so I could be happy for others and I think that is my dream.