Lost and Found, a Dreamer

My Dear Stranger,

“Dreams work if you do it,”

They said.

Lately, I keep seeing those words everywhere.

On screens. On pages. In passing conversations.

And every time, they hit me. Pause me.

I wonder why they keep finding me.

The more I see them,

The more I feel something stir,

like a quiet reminder knocking from inside.

And to whoever is trying to remind me,

This is my honest answer:

“I understand. I really do.

But where do I begin? How?

What am I supposed to work on if I don’t even know what my dream is?”

My Dear Stranger,

Don't get me wrong.

I used to be a dreamer.

I have so many big scenarios in my dream world.

But then I buried those dreams a long time ago,

so deep that I no longer remember what they were.

What was my dream anyway?

Why can’t I remember anything?

Why can’t I feel it anymore?

Or did I never have a dream at all? And if that’s true… why?

My Dear Stranger,

When I look back at my childhood,

it feels like life never gave me space to dream.

Never gave me time to just be a child.

To make mistakes.

To be careless.

To grow slowly.

I had to grow up before my time.

There was no room for being pampered, for being naughty, lazy, or selfish.

There was no room for mistakes.

Life felt like a race against time.

I had to stay alert.

Everything had to be right.

I had to be perfect.

My Dear Stranger,

There is something else I’ve been afraid to admit.

I don’t think I have ambition anymore.

No clear dream to chase,

No title I want to become,

no future image I’m running toward.

Everything just seems formless, shapeless,

covered by shadows.

And sometimes, that scares me.

People speak about ambition like it were oxygen.

Like everyone is born knowing what they want to be,

what they want to build, what they want to conquer.

But inside me, there is only quiet.

No burning hunger for loud desire for power, status, or recognition

No single dream is standing in front of me, waiting to be chased.

My Dear Stranger,

For a long time, I thought something was wrong with me.

But maybe it’s not that I lack dreams.

Maybe my life taught me to survive before it taught me to want.

Maybe when you spend your early years holding everything together,

making sure everyone else is okay,

there is no space left to ask yourself what you want.

Maybe I just forgot, lost.

Maybe ambition requires safety. Time. Permission.

And I had none of those.

My Dear Stranger,

There is one thing I’ve finally realized.

The moment I let go of the things I loved

the things that once defined me,

the things I quietly imagined as my future,

I also let go of myself.

The moment I chose to give up and walk away, just like that,

I buried more than dreams.

My Dear Stranger,

I was the one who killed my own dreams before they even had a chance to begin.

And without realizing it, by doing that,

I buried myself with them.

It hasn’t been easy to be me.

To live a life that feels completely reversed.

To walk a path that looks upside down compared to everyone else’s.

While people my age were allowed to be children,

to dream out loud,

to talk about what they wanted to become,

to try, fail, and try again with support

I had to be an adult.

I had to carry responsibility.

I had to become the head of the family.

I had to understand how everything worked.

I had to make decisions.

I had to be responsible—always.

I had to survive.

There was no space for trial and error.

My Dear Stranger,

But then, one day,

after all these years—something shifted.

A quiet awareness hit me.

It felt like waking up from a long dream,

a dream that was actually a journey.

Like an alarm that wouldn’t stop ringing, demanding an answer.

My answer.

A wake-up call that can’t be muted or ignored,

because the time has come.

My time.

A wake-up call that made me question my life.

"What do you want to do?"

A wake-up call that pulled me back to my past.

And told me to believe again, to not give up.

A wake-up call that asked me to dig up the parts of myself I buried long ago.

That stayed with me, gently guiding me back toward my dreams.

That whispered, "Don’t stop hoping and believing."

My Dear Stranger,

I know you’re living your dream,

doing the things you love.

I imagine you waking up with a sense of direction, a clear purpose,

knowing what your hands are meant to do,

knowing where your heart is going.

I wonder what that feels like,

to move forward without hesitation,

to trust your own calling so fully.

How does it feel to have a dream?

How does it feel when it finally comes true?

How does it feel to live inside it?

Sometimes I wonder how it feels to wake up with purpose,

to recognize your own path without fear or doubt.

My Dear Stranger,

Lately, I’ve been teaching myself to believe,

that maybe—just maybe,

One day, I will feel it too.

And maybe not having a clear dream yet doesn’t mean I don’t have one.

Maybe it only means I am still learning how to dream again,

until one day I feel that same clarity within myself.

Your stranger,

Vie