Do you know when you ask a child what 
her future will be like

and she answers that she wants 
to have super powers or just be big?

If you asked the younger me what my 
life would be like by the age of 16

I would probably answer that
I'll be taller than my father

have a lot of friends, 
walk alone in the city,

be completely independent 
and have a long, long hair.

I always had a lot of imagination 
and I always loved to read.

Translating the letters into images 
and sound,

though everything was religiously silent,

was a way for a kid, human and muggle, 
to become special.

All stories made me really believe that

the material normal life wasn’t the only 
one and that magic existed.

By a certain age I started to see black,

my vision would start to get dark 
on the peripheral area,

until everything became black 
and I would get a little dizzy,

but my imagination was so fertile,

that I thought it was something magical
that was happening to me

or that I was getting secret information 
from the universe.

I always wanted to be special

but while I was growing up
I had to deal with the fact that

the magic world was getting each day
more distant from me.

I would get inside the closet in my house

and I thought that if I really forgot 
about the panel at the back,

it would disintegrate and I would be
able to reach Nárnia.

But I didn't discover a magic 
wardrobe at 8,

and I didn't receive my Hogwarts 
letter at 11,

and a satyr didn't tell me I was a 
demigod by 12.

So my last hope was that Gandalf would 
take me on adventure by the age of 50.

But, on the mean time, by the age of 13,

I suddenly became someone special,

though it really wasn’t
the way I ask it for.

Actually the universe wasn't giving 
me secret information,

but it was dragging me into a black hole.

By the day of September 23rd, of 2015, 
at 7:35 in the morning,

I got late to my old school, as always,

because the city bus took too much 
time to get to my house, as always.

I walked in class and fell.

In the middle of the class, 
in front of everyone.

I didn’t see a backpack 
that was on the floor.

I got to my seat and I realized I couldn’t
see the letters on the chalkboard.

I couldn’t read.

So I called my mom and later that day 
I went to the hospital,

thinking about how cool it would be 
to have a nice pair of glasses.

But I didn’t get them, I didn’t even 
leave the hospital that day.

I was diagnosed with hydrocephalus,

not a very creative word that means 
you have too much liquid in your brain,

and I’ll tell you a spoiler,

in my case it was because a glioma was 
formed in the passage

between the first and third ventricle,

on the base of my head.

This wouldn’t let the liquid 
in my brain flow,

it would get in and couldn’t leave,

what made my intracranial 
pressure very high

and it was damaging my optical nerves.

But the doctors didn’t realize that.

I underwent one surgery, then another, 
then another and another.

I was in a spiral, a cycle that every time
me and my parents were starting to get up,

life would hit us and we would fall,

and again and again.

My world turned upside down and
we were all anesthetized by the situation.

My magic thoughts were suddenly replaced 
by a cascade of saints and entities,

that were just as immaterial 
as my hope on Gandalf.

The problem was that the doctor felt 
certain he knew what was wrong with me.

But since my problem was caused by a
completely different thing,

too much liquid was drained

so they transformed my problem 
from high intracranial pressure

to extremely low pressure.

In 8 months, I underwent 4 surgeries 
with this procedure

and 3 other ones to try to fix 
the mess this doctor made.

But the damage was done.

Then I could finally come back to school,

but I wasn’t the same anymore.

Life continued for normal people and 
I had lost many of the classic events

and teenage crisis which, honestly, 
I don’t miss.

I basically spent one year sleeping,

because since literature was taken away
from me

this was the only way to sink in another
reality in the moment I most needed.

But hey, I’m here today.

There's a sentence that says:
I fell in a hole, came out as a giant.

That’s really how I feel,

because every time something hard happens
to you, there’s a force,

even if it’s almost unnoticeable,

that will bring you up again,

and this time you will be much wiser.

I can concentrate and have much 
more focus on one thing now.

And eating, that's a completely 
different experience.

Everytime I eat “bolinho de chuva”

raindrop cakes

I’m immediately transported to a good and
safe place where there are clouds of sugar

and cinnamon.

And also, when I hear or play music

that’s a way to escape from the 
difficulties I pass in my life.

And now I can remember complete Bob
Dylan’s lyrics,

which is quite crazy.

My imagination is more intense than ever

because now I use it as one of the 
most important senses.

It’s the one who allows me to 
build a completely new world

based on what I have seen and on other
sensorial channels.

I have to use imagination as a creative 
and logical instrument

to survive in this reality that relies 
too much on visual stimulation.

And I can do that because there’s a 
difference between looking and seeing

as there is between hearing and listening.

Seeing and listening aren't about an 
accurate capacity of your senses,

but they mean sensibility,

to understand things and have empathy
with others,

so for this I think I can see better now
than before.

For an example, I can see you’re 
paying attention.

In Greek mythology, the most
famous seer, Tiresias, was blind,

because he wasn’t fooled with the traps of
appearance and the visual world, you see?

I’m definitely not the 16 year old person 
I thought I would be,

and I don’t have the life 
I thought I would,

but if you ask me, would I want to go 
back in time

and prevent this all from happening,

I learnt so much that I don’t want to 
miss who I am now, the answer's no.

Thank you.