Daydreaming…

Wilfred blazer (c/o) (similar)
Sezane blouse
Sezane jeans
Poppy Barley boots (c/o) (similar)
Chanel handbag
Mango belt
Mejuri ring (similar)
Linjer ring (c/o) (similar)
Mejuri earrings (similar)
Location: The Fort Garry Hotel – Winnipeg, Manitoba

I still remember the note that my house mother gave me on the last day of my stay on a summer exchange program in Quebec when I was sixteen.

“Tu es belle, reveuse, independente…”

“You’re beautiful, a dreamer, independent…” As a teenager, those kind words made me feel seen. They made me feel like the person I thought I was (despite the contradictory opinions of most of my peers,) might actually exist if only others could perceive her. I still have that note, tucked away somewhere. The words in it came back to me recently, when I caught myself gazing out my office window for what felt like the hundredth time when I was supposed to be participating in a conference call. Daydreaming.

It was summer in Corfu on my mind, that day. But it can be anything at all. Daydreaming, which I spent so many hours of my adolescence on – mostly conjuring an imagined future wherein I figured out how to properly use a flatiron, grew six inches and knew how to be smart in a way that was an asset rather than liability. It was an escape for me back then, but that was in the past. I absolutely believed I didn’t need to rely on anymore, at least up until a year ago.

At this time last year, we were on a mad dash through Chicago, eating and seeing and shopping for everything we could in four short days. COVID-19 was just a news story. We walked through crowds with impunity, touched public doorknobs without hesitation and never considered using hand sanitizer. Even in the moment, though, we were thinking about future trips. A summer visit to Vancouver, an epic adventure in Spain to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. The future in which those trips took place never came to be. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t spend time daydreaming about it. I chose all of the hotels for the trip to Spain we never took, plotted train routes and imagined museum visits. For every event that happened in my head, there was an outfit.

It wasn’t the same, but daydreaming about it became my only option. A year later, it still is. And when there is no other escape, it’s the best way I know to cope. It’s how I managed to survive four excruciating years of high school utterly convinced that the rest of my life would be better. In the end, I proved myself right – while I don’t think that was because of my tendency to daydream, there’s no doubt in my mind that daydreaming was my means of survival.

My vivid, and often wandering, imagination is the reason I made it through to the time when I could start on the path to the life I really wanted, straight hair and all. And maybe there’s something in that. Maybe, when I look back, I’ll realise that it was daydreaming of being Paris while I was sitting at my desk is part of what got me through this pandemic, too.

Shop the Post