To The Girl In The Purple Pyjamas

When you are little, people like to ask you: “What do you want to be when you grow up”. Some kids want to be a doctor, or a teacher. Others want to be a police officer or a firefighter. Maybe, you will hear the occasional vet or astronaut. I once too got that question. Maybe when I was six, and then another time when I was eight. But no matter what age I was, my answer was always the same.

“I want to be a children’s book writer.”

I know, very specific. But I was six so of course I had a vision.

When I was little, I wrote constantly. I wrote stories about princesses and heroes. Short silly tales written in barely readable handwriting that filled my notebooks secretly tucked away in my wooden desk. I wouldn’t allow the cruel world outside to contaminate them. I was a dreamer. My head everywhere but here. The rare times when I was not reading, I would close my eyes before bed and just think of my own story. I would built entire worlds inside my head. I had recurring characters with elegant, snobby, or kind personalities. Each had a life of their own, carefully crafted by my imagination. Their stories would play before my eyes. Like a movie. Scene after scene, until the voice of my mom would quietly whisper into my ear, “Time to get ready for school.”

One day when I was nine, I woke up and decided: I am going to write a book. I remember going down in my purple flower pyjamas.

“Dad, can you help me start up the computer? I want to write a book.”

He got up and turned on the big gray box. The screen filled with the iconic Windows 7 clear blue sky and bright green grass wallpaper. My dad helped me to start up Microsoft Word 2010 and explained how to save a file and give it a name.

“Good luck!” he said.

When he left, I started typing. My fingers touching the clanky keyboards. Loud and as if my life depended on it. This was of course going to be the next bestseller. The revolutionary title of my first book? Jessica’s Secret. A story about a nine year old girl named Jessica who loved to read and – you won’t believe it – had a secret. I don’t think I ever made it past two pages.

Later, I would enter writing competitions for children. I never won any of them.

I not only liked writing, I also liked to read. My favourite day in the week was library day, where I was allowed to pick out as many books as I was old. At ten, that meant a stack of 10 books. All carefully examined and chosen. I would quickly finish them all in one week, so I could pick out ten precious stories more the week after.

This was my routine for a while and I became so fascinated with reading that my idols became Dutch Children book writers. It became a habit during my primary school years and I slowly build my own mental database of favourite writers and stories. One of them, was Janneke Schotveld, and I dedicated an entire school report to her. I had read every single book by her and I knew all of the titles by heart and the order in which they were published. She was not the only victim of my mental database. Thea Stilton, Jacques Vriends, Anne Wolf, Tosca Menten, Roald Dahl. I devoured them all.

Anna Wolf wrote one of my favourite books at that time: alles kookt over (overcooked). A book she had written when she was just 17 years old. I read It four times. Then, I read everything else she wrote. I knew her entire bibliography. So when she came to the public library to give a talk of course I was front row. Anna wolf, became my inspiration. Writing a book at only 17 years old? Of course I could do that too! But my dreams were only meant to stay dreams.

I dreamt about my future. I dreamt that in that future, I was a writer and I would sit in a cute little cabin — that more resembled a greenhouse — in the garden. My own office space. An office space filled with plants, soft pillows, and cosy furniture. Books stacked against the walls and a big desk full with notebooks and pens in all the colours of the rainbow. A computer, a cup of tea – at this age I hadn’t met coffee yet – and just me and my imagination. I would write and write and write.

But then, I grew up.

And as growing up does, dreams find a way to rearranging themselves.

Somewhere between report cards and praise, my greenhouse office quietly disappeared. In its place came something shinier. More impressive. More acceptable. White lab coats. Microscopes. And my head filled itself with words like impact and innovation.

My parents didn’t see a dreamer.

They saw ambition.

A shy bookworm who was good at school – and 1+1 = 3, also known as – a scientist.

So, when I got to choose my high school, I didn’t choose the school where I could have had dance as a final subject. I chose the school where I could do half of my courses in English. The world around me, just made me believe that was the only right choice for someone with “a brain like me” – But I would always secretly regret that choice. I still secretly dream about what my life could have been like if I had chosen the other school.

When I got to choose my high school subjects, I didn’t choose the subjects that made me once dream. I chose the subjects that sounded impressive. Biology. Chemistry. Physics. The stories in my notebooks slowly dissolved from the chemicals and made way for diagrams of mitochondria and metabolic pathways. The heroes in my stories stepped aside for Nobel Prize winners.

I told myself that this is what I wanted.

I told myself that this was maturity.

When in university my professor called me a storyteller, I saw it as a compliment to my academic skills. When another one told me: “if science doesn’t work out, please, become a journalist”. I laughed. I didn’t realize it was a mirror. He saw in me, the thing that I had buried away. Deeply hidden in the wooden drawers of my old desk that was now replaced with a shiny white one.

But that comment had now opened the drawer little by little. Barely noticeable. Very quietly.

Thus, I entered my master’s programme the way you step onto a moving train. Confident with a clear direction. You know where you’re going, and you know the destination is important. And important it felt. Big words. Big research questions. Big futures in pharma and academia.

And the further the train went, the closer I got to that destination, the smaller I felt.

Science no longer looked like curiosity. It looked like a competition of the best and the elite. It looked like a narrow hallway that only led deeper into itself. It felt like I was in a bubble away from the outside world and slowly the bubble started to tighten and suck the air out of me.

I started to miss something.

I missed softness.

I missed grace.

I missed real creativity.

I missed the magic of making something just because it wants to exist, not because it needed to earn the next grant or the next publication, just because it is good the way it is. I missed the girl in the purple flower pyjamas who believed that two pages were enough to start a revolution. For years, I had tried to silence her. She was naïve. Unrealistic. Childish. But she was also patient.

She waited while I learned how to pipette.

She waited while I memorized pathways and acronyms.

She waited while I told everyone – including myself - that this was the plan.

And then one day, in the middle of making another standard curve and reading yet another paper about protein X , I felt it.

Not failure.

Not burnout.

Just absence.

So I stepped off the train.

Not dramatically. Not all at once. Slowly. Carefully. Terrified.

And I began writing again.

Not about princesses but about confusion. About expectations. About the grief of outgrowing a version of yourself. I wrote about lectures and doubts. I wrote about the panic of not wanting to do the thing you worked incredibly hard for while everyone around you is still in it.

And when I wrote, something started to unfold.

There were no supervisors.

No impact factors.

No methods or results.

It was just words.

Just me.

I didn’t even share it with anyone.

I could write and go wherever it wanted to go. I could ask myself questions without needing to answer them. I could write without proving anything.

And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was breathing again. I wasn’t suffocating anymore. I felt alive.

So now when people ask me: “What do you want to do after you graduate?”

I say: “I want to be a writer.”

But this time. It isn’t just a dream.

It feels closer then ever.

It feels like coming home, and the little girl in the purple pyjamas is patiently waiting for me. She had believed in me all along.

Published on Substack