Dear Stranger Vol. 21 — WordsByEkta🌿
You don't know me. And I don't know your name. But I remember your presence — not clearly, like a face, but like a feeling. Like a mood that lingers longer than it should. Like a forgotten song that still tugs at something tender.
In that dream, I was on stage. The lights were on me. I had gotten the role — the one I used to long for as a child. The chance to live someone else's life, if only for a while. But once I stood there, I froze. Words slipped away. My body forgot how to move. My breath tangled with nerves. I panicked — not because I didn't perform well, but because I remembered: I never really trained for this. I only ever wanted to live many lives. I never learned how to act them out.
That shame stayed with me, even after I woke up.
But now I see: maybe you weren't there to judge me. Maybe you were there to remind me of something. That acting was never meant to be the vessel that would carry my dream forward. It was never the means — only the metaphor. I didn't want the applause. I didn't want the spotlight. I only wanted the stories.
The literal dream faded away, just like the metaphorical one did. Because life happened. Practicality took over. Responsibilities rushed in. And the childhood dream of living many lives through performance slowly receded into the background. But something deeper remained — quietly embedded in my ways of seeing and feeling the world.
Because for as long as I can remember, I've carried this craving to step inside other people's stories. As a child, I used to watch strangers and wonder what they were going through. What kept them up at night. What they were hurrying toward or running away from. I would replay situations in my mind, reimagine endings, invent beginnings.
I'd see a woman at a railway station holding a worn-out bag and a toddler, and I'd wonder: is she running away from someone? Or running back? I'd overhear someone argue over the phone and try to fill in the blanks of their life with fiction. Or maybe it was empathy. I didn't know then. I only knew that my mind never settled for surfaces — it wanted the why behind the what.
I thought it was just daydreaming. But now I know — that was the beginning of writing.
It took me years to find this out. Because the world doesn't always offer you a mirror. Especially when you're too busy trying to survive. I followed other paths. I chased security. I chased money. I even chased approval. I chose what seemed right, what seemed achievable, what seemed worthy. But not once did I choose what made me feel alive.
Until life slowed down. And in that stillness, something unexpected happened: all the thoughts and feelings I had always pushed aside came rushing to the surface. My mind, full of unwritten monologues, began to spill over. First, it was raw emotion — no structure, no filter. Then it became reflection. And eventually, it turned into stories. Fiction. Non-fiction. Bits and pieces that somehow made me feel whole.
And slowly, I realized: I was living those many lives after all. Not under stage lights, but on the page. I wasn't performing characters. I was creating them. I was feeling their hunger, holding their grief, letting their joy spill into mine. I was writing letters I never sent, apologies I never gave, and dreams I never dared to say aloud.
That night, you — the stranger in my dream — showed me the version of the dream I had once clung to. And in doing so, you helped me understand why it never quite fit. I didn't want to act. I wanted to understand. I wanted to become. And writing allowed me to do that in ways acting never could.
The little girl who wanted to be an actor just wanted to live many lives. The woman I am today writes them instead.
And suddenly, all the quirks that made me feel different — the way I replayed conversations in my head, the way I imagined different outcomes to the same events, the way I categorized songs by mood and rewrote lyrics in my diary — they all made sense. They were never distractions. They were early signs. Signs that I was always meant to be a writer.
Even my habit of organizing — of placing names into folders, arranging dreams by color, sorting memories like files — it wasn't just compulsion. It was the beginning of storytelling. Because every writer needs to know where to find the thread.
So maybe that dream wasn't a failure or a regret. Maybe it was a bridge. A gentle reminder that not all childhood dreams die — some just change form.
I may never take center stage, but I will keep building worlds. I may never speak someone else's lines, but I will keep writing mine.
And someday, if I meet another version of you — in a dream, in a story, in a city I haven't yet seen — I hope I'll have something new to share. A new life I've lived on the page. A new perspective. A new voice.
So thank you. For freezing me in that dream so I could unfreeze a truth I'd long buried.
Ekta ❤️ @wordsbyekta
✍️ Written by WordsByEkta🌿
🖋️ Emotional Storyteller | Writing what hearts never say aloud
💌 If you connected with my way of saying hard truths — often overlooked but deeply felt — explore one of my free letters:
wordsbyekta.gumroad.com
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