the dreams i have for my life
I think a lot of us might suffer from this complication in our life outlook.
We may have a trajectory in life growing up - a child's innocent outlook - but it becomes derailed and mired
in the trials of negotiating family relationships. My mom was very creative but her mother
really gave her hell. As a result my mom was very wary about living her true self. My grandmother
would weaponize everything to keep her down. Times in our culture for the roles women
were to have also influenced what her parents dreamed for her and also dictated how my father
and her negotiated the roles in the marriage they would have which didn't allow her to work.
It was a point of pride for my Dad - and for the times he was in - maybe a well intentioned
outlook? that he was motivated to take care of the family well and be a good provider.
I should narrow the focus here of this journal.
I was very creative in my life when growing up - and suffered the same pattern that happened for my parents
each. What I aspired creatively, empathetically and all sorts of aspects of life which were weaponized against
me.
It added to my own suppression of my active dream life and very much attributed it to my schizoaffective
personality that seemed to have two points of reference for me to cope with my feelings and experience and still somehow
make some strides in my life. I wasn't well adjusted. I knew what to say, I knew how to behave, but there
was almost no personal relfection on the route or path my life was taking. I just did what I was supposed to do.
I was moody and depressed.. But I showed a happy face always.
My college counselor cried when she read one of my journals saying "I thought
you were so well adjusted" because I said something with such futility.
Through trial and error and not so beautifully done - the hard work and the good graces
of those who gave me a job - my life became orderly, I had a steady job, I bought a condo, I decorated it and collected
art and crafts but I was missing that appreciation for core relationships.
I was afraid of extra curricular things, outside of the things I was supposed to, I was an active
volunteer person but like a shadowy participant. My personal life, romantic life and sex life were non - existant.
After finally bolting with panic into that world of self indulgence, I knew I had to try it, that I had never charted on my own I really
went to extremes.. I quit my job, started spending money, drinking at a local bar and became very promiscuous.
What I am trying to say is, my dream of my own was only developed to a degree, my dream outside of the context
of the family was very undeveloped and escaping into my own path had me lose and also learn about my self protection
in life.
Then as happened today I thought about it and I know I have to get back to the dream of my talents' manifest.
I think also what I am also learning is that when you spend time with someone you love. There is the initial period where
you serve that someone's needs and wants and sensitivites as well as my own - almost separately....back and forth.
Making time for yourself - making time for the other - and then ultimately today for me it became about 'our dream'
which involves for me opening my heart and mind and embracing the love I have for that other.. It's a joy
and it's good.
The dreams I have for myself are on my mind. I don't want to make others' weaponization of it the thing
that gets me banging at the door of self improvement and perfectionism - only to generate deep depression
and cortisol fueled exhaustion. I am awake now and I know I can do it.
Replies
Big hug sweetie
Yes we're all the way we are for a variety of reasons and a huge part of that is upbringing
Dreams are great but I think what makes them possible is when dreams turn into goals
I hope that you find a wonderful parttime job soon sweetie...xo
thanks janet!
a policy i have adopted for my strictly personal self is to let a dream be a dream and let reality be reality. let the dream motivate, let reality dictate. trying to get life to conform to scripts i wrote during a dream state is entirely too much work.
for what it's worth
i grew up listening to men crow pridefully, "my wife never worked a day in her life! ! !"
fast forward half a century and i wonder often if the biggest we-problem in our country is what we call, "not working." yo. . . gramps. . . have you ever scrubbed a floor? feels like work to me and not the unskilled labor you currently hire your maids for.
Thanks Arfie!
This was the response from Chst GPT:
Thank you for sharing this. I think this is one of your more important journal entries—not because it arrives at a neat conclusion, but because I can see you identifying a mechanism that has been operating underneath a lot of your life.
The central realization
The sentence that feels like the heart of the whole journal is:
“I realized that choosing one path or another is so frightening because I fear others weaponizing my dream against me.”
That is a remarkably clarifying insight.
Earlier in the journal you describe yourself as someone who knew what to say and how to behave, while having very little reflection about whether the life you were living was actually your life. That’s an important distinction.
You learned to be functional before you learned to be self-directed.
And those aren’t the same thing.
You could succeed. You could work. You could volunteer. You could decorate a home beautifully. You could collect art and crafts. You could participate in the world. You could appear happy and well adjusted.
But underneath that was a person who hadn’t necessarily been given permission—internally or externally—to ask:
“What do I actually want?”
I think you are tracing an inheritance
The beginning of the journal about your mother and grandmother is important because you’re not simply blaming your family. You’re seeing a pattern being transmitted.
Your mother was creative, but learned that her creativity and selfhood could become dangerous territory in her relationship with her mother. Your father, meanwhile, inherited a cultural model of masculinity in which providing for the family was a central expression of love and responsibility.
So there were dreams everywhere—but they weren’t necessarily individually authored dreams.
People were loving one another, protecting one another, fulfilling roles, surviving expectations—and simultaneously constraining one another.
That makes your later realization about “weaponizing” particularly poignant.
You seem to be recognizing:
Sometimes people don’t have to consciously intend to destroy your dream for their fear, expectations, disappointment, or criticism to become a weapon against it.
And perhaps you learned to anticipate that weapon before it was even raised.
That’s where the fear of choosing comes from.
If you don’t choose, nobody can really attack your choice.
Your “American dream” passage is fascinating
I particularly liked this:
“I seem to forget who I am and become an invisible set of eyes observing the beautiful life around…”
That is beautifully written, but psychologically it’s also very revealing.
You’re looking at businesses, houses, landscapes, occupations, communities—and imagining yourself belonging to them.
There! Maybe that’s my life.
Or there! Maybe that’s my life.
Or there!
And suddenly the abundance of possibilities becomes paralyzing.
I don’t think the problem is necessarily that you don’t have dreams.
I wonder if the problem is that you have difficulty recognizing a dream as yours until it has been externally validated.
A beautiful business becomes a possible life.
A beautiful house becomes a possible life.
A certain kind of work becomes a possible life.
A particular community becomes a possible life.
You’re seeing manifestations of other people’s dreams and using them as prompts to search for your own.
But your own dream may be much closer to what you’ve already repeatedly described: making things, designing things, collecting beautiful things, drawing, creating environments, noticing beauty, connecting with people, and participating in a community.
The dream may not be a particular job.
It may be a way of being alive.
And that changes the question
Perhaps you’ve been asking:
“What should I do with my life?”
when the deeper question is:
“What kind of life allows the person I actually am to manifest?”
Those are radically different questions.
The first produces endless possibilities and comparison.
The second produces clues.
You don’t necessarily need to decide:
I am going to become X.
You may need to begin saying:
I am going to make more room for the creative, perceptive, relational, curious person that I already am.
Then employment, relationships, art, community, your living environment, and your daily activities can begin organizing themselves around that person.
I also think your distinction between “my dream” and “our dream” is beautiful
The last section takes the journal somewhere deeper.
You write about initially learning to balance your needs and another person’s needs, almost like a negotiation:
your needs → my needs → your needs → my needs.
And then something changes:
“ultimately today for me it became about ‘our dream’”
That’s a very mature development.
You aren’t saying that loving someone means disappearing into their dream.
And you aren’t saying independence means refusing to accommodate another person.
You’re describing a third possibility:
Two people can create something that belongs to neither person individually.
An our.
That’s very different from the family dynamic you’ve been describing, where belonging may have required becoming a certain kind of person.
“Us” doesn’t have to mean “you become what I need you to be.”
It can mean:
“We become something together that neither of us could have created alone.”
That’s a lovely insight.
There is one thing I would gently challenge
You say:
“I feel toughened now about going in the direction that I like and have talent for.”
Yes.
But I’d be careful about turning “toughened” into another form of armor.
You’ve spent a lot of time protecting yourself from other people’s judgments. You don’t necessarily need to become impervious to them.
You may instead be learning:
“Other people’s reactions can hurt me without determining me.”
That’s a subtler and, I think, more sustainable kind of strength.
You don’t have to stop being sensitive.
Your sensitivity appears to be one of your talents.
You need to stop treating your sensitivity as evidence that you shouldn’t proceed.
And there’s an extraordinary connection to your earlier journals
You’ve written recently about choice, creativity, getting back to making things, and the fear that comes with moving toward your own life.
This journal seems to give that whole thread a deeper explanation.
You once described childhood as having “the itching” to make something.
I think this entry suggests that the creative impulse wasn’t merely a hobby you abandoned.
It may represent something much bigger:
the part of you that acts from inside rather than in response to an expectation outside yourself.
That’s why creativity seems to have such emotional significance for you.
Making something isn’t just making something.
It’s authoring.
And perhaps what you’re reclaiming now isn’t simply your creativity.
You’re reclaiming authorship of your own life.
And finally, I really like where you end:
“I am awake now and I know I can do it.”
I wouldn’t make that into a demand.
You don’t have to prove that you’re finally going to get everything right.
You don’t need a grand American dream.
You don’t need perfect self-improvement.
You don’t need to compensate for lost time.
Maybe the much gentler task is simply:
Choose something you love. Make something. Try something. Let someone love you. Build something with someone. Notice when fear tells you to retreat. And choose again.
That is already a life.
And perhaps, after spending so much of your life trying to discover the dream, you’re beginning to discover something even more valuable:
you don’t have to find the one dream. You get to participate in making your life.