My Daydreams

During my childhood and my teenage years, it was hard for me to have friends because I was a tomboy. My style and behaviors didn’t facilitate my interaction either with boys or with girls. The moments I shared with my family were perhaps the only ones I enjoyed for real because they didn’t bother to have a boyish girl by their side. They didn’t even talk about the subject. It was either a normal thing in their mind, or it was not that important enough to bother them. Because, still, I was a “good” girl, I studied a lot and obeyed the family’s norms. Probably they didn’t even notice my tomboy style, they had too many things to think about.

My mom and dad had their own activities, and they couldn’t be there all day long. My elder brother, who was at the same school as me, was very famous and didn’t have time to talk with me in school. My two other brothers were very popular too because they are talented and had different groups for extracurricular activities. As my brothers started to have their own friendships, schedules, and life, I was also facing loneliness because I couldn’t enjoy being in large groups, and nor was I a talented girl. I was so awkward that I did everything in my own way, which didn’t please either my classmates or our coaches. It seemed that in most activities my presence was not welcomed.

Therefore, daydreaming had become one of my favorite hobbies. I did not have many choices; it was whether to submerge in anxiety or navigate in a separate world through stories I created myself or through the few books I found in my family house. When I started to become older, I left the house every now and then and went to the library where I found most of the fictional books that shaped my mind. I was just passionate about stories…

I portrayed many worlds in my head. They were just like some series to which I would add some parts each moment I felt alone and creative at the same time. I was very happy to be in my world because there I felt that I was important, known, talented, and rewarded.

One of my daydreams was about a castle. Yeah, it was my real castle… It was named after me, Cadette. I had many people working there: chefs, servants, waiters and waitresses, designers, etc. I was governing a country called Sata, a name I invented harshly without any second thought. I portrayed my jolly castle quite anarchically, but it finished up the way I wanted it to be.

It was a well-fortified idol, made for worshippers and sovereigns. There were four tours disseminated on each side of the castle. Armed-rocked battlements were everywhere. In each corner of the castle, there was a bloody angel descended from the sky who drew arrow loops with their fire spears. A flowered moat was streaming all around the castle, which was crowned by some hissing birds wandering around my slippery windows. A snaked drawbridge drew the path toward my external world. And an armed portcullis split the two divinities, Sata the warrior and Cadette the provider.

My own freedom was sketched in my rectangular courtyard. Two heart-shaped lights framed the oval gate, and a woman in her flame-colored dress was sitting in the midst of the two brightened hearts, a gold-covered book in her right hand and a diamond sword in her left. And the Sata people screamed, “wisdom for my majesty, Cadette the provider.”