Heidi Ahihi

This is a post from my personal blog in 2022, specifically written on October 18, 2022.
It was originally in Vietnamese, but now I’ve translated it into English to share with my friends here in Hawaii.

“Today Facebook reminded me of this day 10 years ago when my university friend and I went to the Fine Arts Museum with such childlike excitement. I can’t really remember the exact details of that trip anymore, or even the pure emotions I wrote back then. It has been a long time since joy truly came from within me, rather than from placing it on others.

For so many years, I never dreamed of something just for myself. And maybe that’s why the small joys of having a dream were missing from my life. Dreams are free, but people without dreams are truly unfortunate, and yet, I lived like that for many years.

When I was a little girl, I actually had a tiny dream. Next to my house, there was a small 17-square-meter home where my neighbor’s family lived. I loved playing with the daughter, so I often went over. To reach her attic, I had to bend low, climb up on iron bars fixed to the wall, and once I got up there, I had to sit down immediately because the ceiling was so low. But I loved that little attic. I was fascinated by the crafts she made: paper or silk flowers, hand-knitting, sewing. Back then, we still wrote letters by hand, decorated notebooks with glitter pens, cut pictures from magazines, pasted them everywhere, and rewrote song lyrics or poems we found.

Among those sweet memories are little fragments, like when we napped together in the attic and a mouse ran by. She teased me, ‘Careful, the mouse will bite your foot,’ and I would get scared but still told her, ‘I like your house more than mine.’ Looking back, it might have sounded funny since my family’s house was a tall five‑story building right next door. But as a child, what I really loved was her tiny attic filled with all the beautiful handmade crafts she created, little treasures that made her home feel magical to me.

One day, I even told her mother, ‘When I grow up, I’ll build you a big house.’ She just laughed, and my mother, who was there, laughed too. My words were so innocent and childish, but in my heart, I really meant them. But before I had the chance to grow up, my neighbor had already built her own four-story house. And just like that, I lost my dream.

Since then, my life drifted along aimlessly, only burning briefly whenever someone pulled me into their plans. I applied to Hanoi University, formerly the Foreign Language College in Thanh Xuân, not out of passion, but because English was the only thing I had. Later, when I became an interpreter, then a teaching assistant, and finally a TOEIC instructor, I felt glimpses of joy in my work.

One day, a friend who invested in a Canadian company wanted to open a branch in Vietnam and asked me to help set it up. In my heart, I thought: ‘She’s my best friend. If I don’t help her, who will?’ So I left my teaching job and joined her, even though people criticized me for leaving a stable place for something uncertain.

At that time, my thinking was simple: between a company that could easily hire another teacher, and a friend who only had me to rely on, I had to choose my friend. Maybe my logic sounds funny to you, I chose a job not because of passion or skill, but simply because a friend asked. And I thought, ‘If others can do it, so can I.’ Perhaps my way of thinking has always been different.

Time passed. The results weren’t terrible, but deep down, I knew this wasn’t the right job for me. I lacked both the ability and the experience, and without resources, success was nearly impossible. By then, my peers were finding stability, while I felt stuck. Eventually, my best friend and I tried opening English classes instead, since that was the one thing I could do. But without management experience, the classes overlapped, problems arose, and on top of that, I faced health issues that forced me to stop.

Looking back, everything came down to one root cause: I never had a clear dream, or more precisely, a direction for myself.

But now, I finally do. I’ve discovered a private dream and learned how to break it into small steps, thanks to the wisdom of Chi Nguyễn from The Present Writer. The first step was brutal, I barely slept for weeks but the moment I achieved something, I felt overwhelming emotion. I’ve been blessed with wonderful mentors around me, and I realized that true joy only comes when I achieve something through my own effort.

The dream is still far away, but now it is specific. The path ahead is slowly becoming clearer. And I’ve learned: the dream that makes you happy should always be tied to your own growth.”

Back to 2025, three years have passed, and my dream has become clearer. My dear friends, I’m sorry that I have to keep it to myself for now. I promise I’ll share it once I’ve truly achieved it. What I can say is that this dream is the reason I returned to being a student. With it, I feel more confident in what I’ve gained so far, and I believe in myself to make it come true. I also hope that each of you who read this can nurture your own dream and while we’re all on our separate paths, may we meet again at the finish line when our dreams come true.