When Dreams Die (And What Lives On)

Podcast transcription by otter.ai (poorly) and unedited.

Hi guys, welcome back.

You know, there's a very peculiar kind of grief that comes not from what happened, but from what won't happen. You know the future you planned the dream, you dared to dream, the version of your life that you know, not so long ago felt inevitable, and then one day it just isn't, you know, it dies. Usually it's a slow and painful death, and oftentimes it takes a really long time for you to notice that it's dying, you know, to accept it and to stop fighting against it. And when it does, or when you do allow it to die, you're left sitting there, you know, holding the weight of something that never came to pass, but still shaped you at the time, and maybe even defined who you were trying to become. And this isn't something that just happens to one particular group of people or one type of person. I think this is something that we've all experienced in our lives at one point or another.

You know, I'm sitting here in Georgia today, you know, not for much longer, packing boxes again, and I started thinking, you know, three years ago, I packed these same boxes with so much hope and certainty and dreams. David and I were empty nesters, far empty nesters.

At the time, I was working in a job that I could do from anywhere. My kids had often talked of moving here to be closer to their cousins. You know, David was ready for a change. We were both coming up on 50, and it was like,

this is the time, you know, and at the time, everything we were doing to make this happen just fell into place. You know, his job fell into place. We found a house, right? It just, it was all working out. And, you know, and I had plan and a dream and a vision and a hope for where we were going and what our life was going to look like for ever, right?

And I can remember thinking, This feels like a dream.

You know, I cannot believe we're actually doing this and it's happening. It's all working out. And, you know, maybe you've said that about your own dream too. You know, maybe you're saying it right now, and it wasn't a fantasy. It isn't a fantasy. It's a blueprint, you know, something you're building piece by piece and hour by hour and detail by detail. You know, you put your whole being into it, you know, fueled by a purpose and a hope for something better. You know, you make sacrifices, you do scary things to make this dream a reality. And you know sometimes you make poor decisions along the way, and sometimes it takes a while to realize that your decisions were poor, but still, even through all of this, I have clung on to such hope that even when the failing results were smacking me in the face, I just kept trying to make it work and make it happen.

And you know, again, it's not just me and us in this situation. It could be anything. You have a dream job of the perfect guy or girl that you're going to spend the rest of your life with. We all experience it. We all, at one time or another, have that thing that we build up our hopes and dreams and fantasies as you know, the end all be all thing this is it. And still, sadly, sometimes, no matter how hard you try, something just doesn't work, right? You know, there's not always a dramatic ending or a big cloud clap of thunder or a final betrayal or a straw that broke the camel's back. It just sometimes is just a slow, quiet death. You know the excitement fades, the the pit in your stomach gets bigger. Your body starts failing it before your mind even catches up with it, you start leaking in.

Energy from places you didn't even know you could leak energy from. You know, for me, I started having a lot of panic attacks. That's where it started. Yeah, many more than I had in years past. And I've talked about this before. You know, my shoulders kind of lived permanently hunched in my ears, and I stopped sleeping well, and then, you know, a lot of the time, stopped sleeping at all, and my nervous system was screaming at me something that my brain didn't want to admit. You know, this isn't sustainable. This isn't healthy. This isn't you. This isn't happening. You know, the dream you had, all of it, the house, the land, the dream job, the kids moving here, the closer ties to your extended family. It's late. It's just not happening. End of story. And devastating. You know, admitting it feels like failure.

You know, because if this big, bold, beautiful dream isn't working, what what does that say about my judgment or my resilience or my worth? And eventually, though, you have to face the reality this isn't happening, not now and maybe not ever. And something inside of you just kind of shatters, you know, and it's always been very hard for me to describe this state, and I came across a quote last year,

Soren Kierkegaard,

the most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly one you'll never have.

And when I read that the first time, the air just caught in my chest, because that was exactly it, you know, the feeling I was feeling then and now and countless times before that, but never had such beautiful words to explain it, and what it's what it's saying is, you know, you don't just mourn the loss you mourn all the years have imagined joy that you pictured in your mind.

You know you mourn all the time, and the sweat and the tears that you put into building this dream that all of a sudden feels wasted.

You know, the life I thought I'd build here, the the job that I thought was going to be one thing and turned out to be another, the version of myself that I thought that this move and this part of my life would unlock, you know, the someday that I thought was finally happening,and then to realize it's just gone.

You know, you grieve not only everything you're losing now in the moment, but everything that hasn't happened and won't but you dreamed it would, and you grieve the confidence that you lose, you know, the trust in your own instincts and just slowly get beaten away. You know, one crumbling piece of that dream at a time.

And the thing is, our nervous system doesn't distinguish between real loss and the death of a possibility, right? The body grieves it all the same. And I think that's why this kind of disappointment can feel so physically overwhelming and so surprisingly deep. This is the kind of grief that is different and harder to explain, but also think it's harder to empathize with, because it's so difficult for people to put into words, and so I just don't think we talk about it. You know, it's not public, like death is, it's not visible, like divorce is it doesn't have, you know, funerals and wakes and rituals and casseroles delivered to your door. It's just you sitting alone with a resignation letter that you're scared to send in, or a mortgage payment you can't afford anymore, or a home repair that you at one time thought you could do yourself realize you can't, and you feel worthless, and you feel like a failure and a loser, and you try to be rational. You know, this isn't a waste. I learned something, and I'm very, very.

Gone learning, and it's all true, I've learned so many things, not only about what I'm incapable of, but about what I am capable of even more. But it still hurts. You know? It's still embarrassing. It still feels like failure, even when it's not, yeah, it's like it leaves this U shaped hole in a future that doesn't exist. And so, you know, when I finally admitted that that I couldn't make it work at that job, and that staying was harming me more than than leaving ever could and selling the house and moving back home, it's like this simultaneous feeling of relief and terror, you know, because if this isn't working, if this detailed plan that I put together and worked so hard at isn't working, then what? And so you're in this weird in between spot where you're grieving the you that won't ever be, but also finding the courage and the strength and the dream to build the next version of you and your next big dream. And it's scary and it's exciting and it's terrifying because your psyche is literally trying to reorganize itself around a new reality, and it takes time, and it takes energy, and it takes a lot of compassion for the parts of you that aren't ready to move forward yet. You know, for months now, I have felt like I was grieving someone who was still alive, and the future version of myself that this opportunity was supposed to create.

And I've really had to learn to hold on to both truths. You know, this dream mattered deeply to me, and it's not happening the way I imagined, you know, and both things are true, and really the turning point for me, and I know I'm still getting a little weepy here, but there has been a turning point, and talked about it a week or two or Three ago, you know, when I stopped asking why me and what's wrong with me, and started asking for real questions that will help me move into that next phase with for confidence and hopefully this time, more compassion for myself. You know, what does my body need right now?

Yeah, because our nervous systems, especially those of us who are neurodivergent and trauma informed and highly sensitive, you know, our bodies know things well before our minds do, and my body has just needed rest and predictability, and you know, around people who saw my humanity over my productivity, I've needed to remind myself that my worth isn't tied to tolerance for toxic environments or my ability to build a bookshelf from scratch, because that's where I placed my worth for a long time.

And so, yeah, we're moving back home, and it's not because I failed, it's because I finally listened, you know, I listened to the dream telling me that it wasn't right and it wasn't happening.

And I'm still trying to reconcile the grief over the death of this old possibility and the hope for the new possibilities, and it's it's really providing me with a deeper understanding of how, you know, we're all just walking around with nerve nervous systems shaped by experiences we haven't fully processed a lot of the times, you know, workplace trauma is not unique to me. The dream for this home and this land not working out that's not unique to me. It happens every day.

We just don't talk about it much. We don't talk about what this part of that loss feels like.

And you know, I'm not talking about silver linings or everything happens for a reason, and toxic, toxic positivity in my change of thinking, what it is is I'm still here, you're still here, and when we're still here, that all that means that is the possibility, isn't it?

Right? Only this one is so the work I'm doing now, you know, supporting people through these transitions, using, you know, art therapy and trauma informed approaches none of that would exist if the original dream hadn't died first, right? And the realization that sometimes what feels like an ending is actually clearing the way for a new beginning is such a liberating feeling, but you still have to grieve fully first. You know, we can't bypass it. We can't dress it up and fake gratitude and rush towards the lesson. You know, grief has to move through us completely before the new thing has the full room to breathe, right? And what I wish I had known sooner. So I'm sharing this with you now, and I hope you find it valuable. You don't have to figure out what's next right away. You know, our only job is to tend to what is here and now, to honor what we've lost, to let our nervous systems recalibrate and catch up, to trust that clarity will come when we're ready to see it And the new dream, you know, the one that's actually aligned with who we're becoming, rather than who we thought we should be or wanted to be.

It's probably already there, and it's going to wait for us, and we will get there just in time. And so what I want you to know and what I wanted to share with all of you through this, you know, there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm not a failure. You're not a failure. None of us are behind schedule, none of us are broken. We're just human and hopefully brave enough to dream in the first place and to continue dreaming, because that's That's where courage is at. You know, the willingness to start over that takes even more courage than starting the first time.

You know, letting go doesn't immediately reveal some new path. You know, life, sadly, isn't neat, and honestly, though, I think that's part of what makes it beautiful. You know, the unknown and surviving these difficult times serves a greater purpose of showing us just what we're capable of handling right? It shows us that we're capable of growth and wisdom and resilience, and the future that we sometimes so meticulously plan doesn't always have to work out exactly to plan to be just as beautiful as we dreamed it would be, you know, and the future doesn't have to be crystal clear, it just has to be yours and mine. I think sometimes the most honest thing we can do is admit that we don't know what comes next, but be courageous enough and willing to find out because that, I think that willingness is everything. So just wanted to share that with you, in case you're feeling alone or like it's just you. It's not, it's not, it's every single one of us, and we just don't talk about this kind of loss and grief as much as we should, and I think it leaves us all feeling lonelier than we have to. So hope you'll come back. Over the next few weeks, I should have some great gals on here with me having some fun conversations. So I'm looking forward to sharing that with you, and until then, be well, and I don't have anything else to say. Love you. Bye.

About the Author
Gal is an autistic artist, late-diagnosed at 49, and the creator of AuRTistic Expressions—a space where neurodivergent truth meets creative survival. Through blog posts, printables, courses, and the “This Might Get Messy” podcast, Gal explores what it means to unmask safely, communicate authentically, and make art that doesn’t ask for permission. Stick around—there’s plenty more where this came from.

Transcription by Otter.ai

Cover Photo by Pink Pixie on Unsplash