A hero, that’s what I told them when they asked me. I don’t know how old I was, but I was young enough that I could just stand there, my chest puffed out in pride, not realizing what was behind that word. I just wanted-or was it needed? To be someone, this time I didn’t want to be swept up in a flood of change, but to instead make one. This yearning for something more consumed me, filling both my dreams and waking moments. I could only dare to hope to be something far away from what I really was.
Everyone around me said that my dream would fade away, that it was just a phase. But no matter what they gave me to do, what they did, the dream stayed. It was a hunger that nothing could sedate. Eventually they ran out of ideas and I ran out of patience dealing with my “problem.”
Then, when I told them I was leaving, to fill that childhood dream of mine, they laughed. They said there was no such thing as a hero anymore, that the world had no place for them. They said I was a fool for trying, another thing the world had no time for. They said to me that one who comes from nothing cannot make something of himself. As they watched me with smug faces awaiting my response, I just told them “I’ am leaving.” I walked out. Away from the place and life that had imprisoned me for so many years. Away from their “better” future, and towards my own.