From pirate to journalist

When you were 10, what did you want to be when you grew up? What are you? Are the two connected?

– I wanna the captain and spent my life sailing.

– You cannot be the captain, because you’re a girl. I’ll be the captain because I’m a boy and I’m older, said my brother emphatically. You’ll be my aid. Rose will be the cook and Ann a sailor, we will be pirates looking for a treasure.

We were playing, but I was serious.

My brother was the organizer of our playing. Our pirate ship play was our favorite. We all loved the Ocean, ships and sailing. We all felt the call of the sea. It was a long tradition in our family. Generations and generations of ship’s captains. But because of the extraordinary circumstances of my parent’s life we ended in another country and in an inland city.

My brother used to hide a “treasure” in our flat and we could spend days hunting for it. Our room (the girl’s room) was the ship. We had it decorated with its black and white flag with a skull and bones and all in it. The corridor was the sea, and the other rooms were the islands. We always were “swimming” in the corridor, running for cover in the rooms, playing for weeks without getting tired.

Knowing that being a pirate was not an option I began to think in a way to spend my life sailing, so I decided to be a marine biologist, because I love nature and animals.

I began to prepare myself opting for sciences but then I found the harsh reality: we didn’t have the money. I had a job to help at home, but it wasn’t enough.

I had to choose among the offer I had in my city were my father was a University teacher and a journalist. So I decided to be a journalist too.

And here I am, a journalist inland, dealing with news and human beings, instead with nature and animals. I have traveled a lot and hit the streets for a long time as a reporter, but now I’m spending more time in my office. About sailing, the only thing I navigate these days is the Internet. Nothing close to spending my life in the open sea as I was dreaming when I was 10.

Daily Prompt: Ballerina Fireman Astronaut Movie Star.

More dreams in the next page: