dreams { h.s. }

{Prologue}

I suppose you could say I'm a dreamer.

But everyone dreams, right?

Ever since I can remember, Granny told me stories about her adventures. And I hung at her lips, watching with astonishment as her words painted beautiful images inside of my mind.

I sat in her lap, eyes glowing, full of excitement. I couldn't wait to go on my own adventures, travel the world just like Granny. I wanted to visit the forests, the coasts, the big cities and the people.

When I was 9, I begun saving money. Not much, since I was only a child but every day I put away one pound into a small jar. My plan was to leave the small village we lived in as soon as I turned 18.

On my eleventh birthday, Granny gave me a journal. It wasn't very big, but it was full of blank pages, a little brownish since they were made of recycled paper. She told me it was from one of her adventures. "I want you to fill the pages with your own adventures", she said, "Write about them so you will never ever forget them." Ever since, the journal was my greatest treasure.

The first time I wrote in it, I was 14. My family was going on their first ever vacation. I was beyond excited and the whole car ride, I followed the road with my eyes, picturing my departure four years from then.

London was our destination and I couldn't believe my eyes when we arrived.

I frollocked along the sidewalk, watching as the people around me went about their lifes. And there were so many of them, so many, you would never have enough time to get to know them all, to get to know every single story. That is when I learned what it meant to be alive.

I filled the first pages of the journal with my thoughts about London. I used the word amazing about a hundred times but it really was amazing. Granny made me tell her every little detail of our trip and for the first time I was the one with the adventure.

When I was 17, my world broke apart.

Granny was diagnosed with cancer, "the bad kind" the doctor said, "incurable, I'm sorry". My universe shattered in front of my eyes. My Granny, my invulnerable, immortal, timeless Granny was going to die and there was absolutley nothing I could do about it.

From then on, I visited her everyday, keen on hearing every adventure before she would go on her very last one. And she smiled whenever I asked her to tell me the next one. Sometimes I wondered if it was all made up, because how could one little lady go on so many adventures in only a lifetime.

It was on a late summer afternoon, we were sitting on her porch, I was right beside her, grown out of her lap years ago.

"I haven't told you about my biggest adventure yet." she said.

I was in awe. What could possibly be bigger than what she had already told me?

"Love, my dear."

I suppose you could say I'm a dreamer.

{song: dream on - aerosmith}