A Dream That I Have Since I was 12

Since I have loved to share all of my thoughts, my experiences, my learning and my perception by writing down in my blog, this time is about my childhood dream. My crazy childhood dream.

When I was a kid, my parents wanted me to be a doctor. It was a normal thing that all the parents wanted their children to be the doctors or engineers because there were no other impressive job status during those times. They also barely tried to figure out what their children wanted to be. Once we learned that they wanted me and my brother to be a doctor and engineer, whenever someone asked us what we wanted to be when we became adult, our answers were doctor for me and engineer for my brother. Whenever we answered like that, we found that my dad seemed so happy. So, we didn’t have choice, we always answered just like that, just to make my dad happy.

But that was not what we wanted to be. I always wanted to be a writer. I found that I had that desire to be a writer since I was 12 years old. At that time, we watched the Chinese TV series and I created my own stories in my mind and I named each character which I found really amused. I found that writing was the best experience in my life because I could create the character whatever I like and I could even name them. I didn’t like my name that my parents gave me. But I didn’t have choice. I was called by that name since I was born. But I could give the name I liked to the characters that I wrote about.

When I was 12 years old, I found that reading and writing were my hobbies. During every summer, I read every book in my house and I even borrowed the books from our neighbors. I was lucky because one of our neighbors had so many Buddhism books and I learned a lot about my religion that I believed in. After reading so many books about Buddhism, I found that I wanted to be a nun when I grew up. So, my answer changed at that time. I told my parents that I wanted to be a nun.  They seemed not so happy but they didn’t say whether it was bad or good because they were afraid to go to hell once they said it’s not good for wanting to be a nun. Well, that was religion thing and they couldn’t say anything. Since my parents' reaction was not that bad as I expected, I smiled inside and kept talking that I wanted to be a nun.

 

So the next summer, I requested my parents to allow me to be a nun. Unfortunately, they didn’t allow me to do so because they were afraid that I chose to be a nun for all my life and never came back to them. It was really funny though because I didn’t have that kind of desire now as I am more in love with my long hair and always hesitate to shave my head. I am sure everyone thinks it was really funny when they found out the reason behind for me wanting to be a nun. Well, when I was 12 years old, I was one of the ugliest girls in my class because my parents never let me to have long hair and bought me to wear the clothes that are always one or two size bigger than me. They bought those kind of big size clothes for future plan as my body size would be getting bigger and by buying the bigger size could save money as I could wear the same cloths for at least three years. I bet they never tried to wear or imagine such kind of clothes on their bodies and didn't realize how ugly I looked with those clothes on that they bought for me.  They just allowed me to have a short haircut just like a boy. So, sometimes, when the guests came to our house, they thought I was a boy. 

Whenever I looked at my face in the mirror, I saw the ugly tomboy face. But I know how to be beautiful. I needed to do the good deeds and made a wish to be beautiful in next life which I learned from the Buddhism books that I used to read when I had strong desire to be a nun. I thought I couldn’t do anything about my ugly face in this life. So, I decided to be a nun and prayed every day to be beautiful when I became an angel in heaven. Why I wanted to be an angel next life? That’s funny too. I read all the angels had longer lifetime than any human kind and they always look 16 years old and never aging. Plus, I believed that the heaven was up in the cloud and I always imagined myself playing and jumping around the cloud when I became an angel. I even talked a lot about Buddhism and said the religion stories to my friends at school. So, before I started writing, I was fond of sharing what I read or what I knew with others. 

When I was 13, the desire to be a nun was gone after I met with Britney Spears. Of cos I didn't meet with Miss Spears in person. When I and my brother visited to our Uncle’s house and we found the young and sweet blond girl's VCD in his room. He used to work in abroad and he brought those VCDs from the country that he used to work. So, we borrowed those VCDs including Miss Jennifer Lopez's VCD (we never returned those to him though) and watched those MTVs almost every day. I loved how Britney Spears danced in red jumpsuit in the song “Oops I did it again”. I couldn’t sing the song and I couldn't even understand what were those songs about because my English was so poor. The only phrase that I could sing along with Miss Spears was "Oops I did it again".  Since then I was like “Oops I did it again” almost every day. My mom seemed so surprise to see my sudden mood change. Last year, I was claiming to be a nun but this year I was dancing and singing the English song which I didn't understand. She was afraid that I wanted to be singer. But she was not that afraid because she knew that I had very terrible voice and ugly face. So, she saw it clear that I didn't have any criteria to be a singer.

Yeah, I was still ugly but I still wanted to be an angel. So, whenever I went to pagoda, I always bought the red rose with my pocket money and made a wish to be beautiful and angel in next life. I didn’t know why I didn’t wish to be pretty in this life. Maybe I  thought there was nothing to make me pretty in this life. I guess I didn't even believe in the magic of cosmetics at that time. All of my focus was about next life and I always pictured myself wearing the angel wings and jumping around the cloud before I slept. But after I saw Britney in red jump suit, I pictured myself in red jump suit jumping around the cloud.

When I was 15, I started reading the books written by Dagon Shwe Myar and Shwe Oo Daung and most of the books that I read were translated stories by those writers. Since then I realized what kind of writer that I would have liked to be. But I couldn’t speak out to my parents that I wanted to be a writer because wanting to be a writer was not as impressive as wanting to be a doctor. I heard that writers couldn’t depend on their income to survive and couldn’t support their whole family financially.  So, I didn’t say to anybody that I wanted to be a writer but I started writing. I didn’t want to study at that time. I saved my pocket money to buy the books that I liked. I also hid those books in my room because I was afraid to be scolded by my mom when she found that I was not studying but reading the books which was not related to the school subjects. 

During the summer of 2003, I read “Camellia” by Alexandre Dumas Jr which is translated by Maung Htun Thu. That book inspired me to write about the sad story. The book is about an upper class prostitute who fell in love with a man from middle class and they couldn’t be together due to different classes especially because of her career. She loved that man a lot and she scarified everything for him. That character inspired me a lot to create the romantic story especially with sad ending as the main character died from sickness. I thought people would always remember the books or characters with sad ending.  That book also made me interest in prostitute life and I always wanted to write a story about them. I never see the prostitute as a low standard people who deserved the hate from the society. 

Well, being inspired by that story, I started writing about a poor young girl who was sick and fell in love with a rich guy. I made these two persons got married in my story. But I didn't know how to end the story. So, I let the girl died from her sickness. But I also wanted it to be very romantic and very sad. So, I wrote that the girl just died on her love's shoulder by sitting on the bench in their garden on a spring morning when the wind blew softly. They both saw the leaves were falling around them and the girl kept saying how much she loved him and how blessed she was to be with him. After she spoke all the things she wanted, her soul left this world peacefully.  After I finished that story, I requested my friends to read it. At that time, I was 15 years old trying to sit the high school exam. My high school friends were so amazing because they read my story and they said they loved it. They were the first reader who read my story. They asked me how could I create it. They even asked me what was my pen name. I couldn’t think of any better name even though I didn’t like my real name. So, I said my pen name would be my real name. 

They told me to let them read when I wrote again. I was really happy to know that. They never mocked my writing even though I let the main character died just because of the sickness that I couldn’t even name. It’s funny because I wrote about love and marriage when I was only 15 years old and I didn't know about love. One of my friends advised me I should have had an attractive signature because when I became the writer, I needed to sign a lot on my copies. Well, due to her advice, I practiced to have the best signature the whole day by imagining I was signing on my copies. I still remember how busy I was at my study desk by signing in my study book by imagining that I was signing at my book premier event. Thanks to that friend because I could create my own signature which I believed creative and attractive. Well, even though I never have a chance to sign on my copy till 28, I still don’t give up. Still dreaming to sign on my copy one day. 

When the matriculation exam result came out, the result was so bad. Well, actually it’s not that bad. But as my parents wanted me to be a doctor, my scores were too far from the medical college entrance score. So, all the condition changed reversely. Before the result came out, I didn’t have to clean the house. My mom always made the breakfast for me, I could get up late and I didn’t have to wash my clothes. But since the result came out, my mom didn’t want to do those kind of things. So, I needed to get up early. If I didn’t get up early, she always came to my bed and woke me up. I needed to wash my clothes, made my dish and clean the whole house. I hate those kind of things to do. But I didn’t have choice since I could not bring the result that they wanted. 

During the whole senior high school year, my dad always pressured me if I couldn’t attend the medical college, I didn’t have to live in his house. Though he didn't remind me to leave the house when my result was not good, I thought it was time to leave as they treated me differently. Then I decided to run away. I packed my clothes and thought about what I would do after I left this house. I tried to picture my future by working in factory, working so hard to be the best factory worker who could make a lot of money.  So, just like in movies, I came back when I was rich and revealed my real identity. Of cos I never run away because my brother told me that I would be traded to Thailand and China borderline before I worked in factory. So, I unpacked all the things and decided to live in my parents' house till now. 

Well, it’s really funny when I thought about those things back. I talked about it with my friends and they always laughed whenever they listened to this story. 

But I was lucky because I had chance to attend the new opening Management college. I didn’t know about that college but one of my friends told me about this and I submitted the form and was selected to attend. My scores were only 2 scores higher than the margin score. Then in college, I met with the craziest friends who were crazier than me. I was too lucky because I also found the way to make money after I graduated. 

I kept writing the stories in college too. I asked my friends to read it as well. They read and they gave their feedback. I always listened to their feedback. They asked me to send my stories to magazines. But I was always afraid my stories would be rejected. I was not ready for that rejection. So, I never sent my stories to magazine while I was attending college. There were lots of unfinished stories that I wrote during that time. I wrote a lot because I loved to imagine about my characters and I also didn’t have any special things to do while I was attending college. I really wanted to be like Jane Austin and Charles Dickens. I loved their books and their characters always inspired me a lot too. 

Though I am not a writer till I am 28, that dream is still alive because this is what I really wanted to be. My mom and my grandpa from my mother side wanted to be a poet and writer when they were young. My mom used to write lots of poems before she got married and I found her poems from her diary when I was 10 years old. She said she gave up to be poet once she got married to my dad, had me and my brothers. I felt guilty a while. My grandpa also gave up as he lived in the place too far from Yangon and he had five kids to raise during the hard times. 

Sometimes I imagined myself signing on my copies and taking the pictures with the persons who bought my book. I also imagined seeing my stories on the movie screen too. I believe that this is the dream that will never die because that dream is being alive for more than 15 years. I would like to say I am lucky to have very nice people around me who encourage me to keep writing and advise me every time after they read. I always feel like writing is way of escape from the current unfavorable situation that I am in. I can escape from it for a while and imagine the life that I want to be. 

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