Welcome,
It's O.K to grieve for the person you never became. It's O.K to sit inside of a life that you never planned to have.
I am not going to write another damn blog that's going to “inspire” you to get back on the horse and to keep trying. Sometimes there is no getting back on the horse. Sometimes things just end. Sometimes a part of your life put's itself to bed and all you are left with is the pieces. We all start out with some kind of dream and even if you've done your best, even if you've done everything “right” you can still end up without it. The very dream you dedicated your life to may not manifest into your life. Then what?
I know what it is to wake up inside of a life that feels completely foreign. I know what it is to watch excitement for your future slip away and be replaced with an unending sequence of bland. There is a difference between existing and living. Thoreous quote, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.” is no joke. So what do you do? What do you do when your dream implodes? What do you when the life you built just isn't for you? Or when you built something that was seemingly perfect for you and it get's taken away? The first step I think is to let yourself feel it. All of it. Let yourself grieve it. Let the pain inside of you almost burn with the anger and the rage of the sense of injustice. Let yourself hurt. You're allowed. Running from the pain is what causes further damage. Running from it leads to some scary places and I don't recommend a single one of them.
As a bloke I was told to just “man up”. To pretty much put any idea of dreams to one side and get on with it so, when my dreams collapsed, that's pretty much what I tried. So it was no real surprise when I began to feel like I was dying inside. Piece by piece I felt myself self slip away. I ran from the pain. I failed at running from the pain and then I was forced to sit inside of it.
If your dream has no chance of coming true then you have to take control and let it die. The trick is to not let it take you down with it.
In the pieces, in the psychological rubble of that carnage you can, if you work hard, find the person you've become after going through that death. You can build yourself back up and rediscover who you are now. Try not to get locked in to who you were. Piece by piece, as you let the old you go you can welcome in someone new, someone maybe wiser, someone maybe more open. Maybe that person has a new dream? Maybe that person doesn't need one? That you'll find out in time. What I've learned on my journey through this that I am a happier human being when I have a dream to pursue. I used to think I had to wait for divine intervention, for a spark of inspiration of sorts. Sometimes I do get those and they are beautiful but also, I choose some of my dreams. I carve them out of my life and get a plan and work towards them. Sometimes they work and that's great. Sometimes they don't and it hurts and I grieve and then I move on.
I am not the person I set out to be but I am proud of the person I've become. I am not living the life that I wanted but I am grateful for the life that I have. I don't have the wealth, status or lifestyle that I spent over a decade trying to create and yet, I'm still here. I'm still happy. I still smile. I still have a great life. I still love who I am. I have people I love and people who love me.
We seem to only talk about failure in the context of a preluding success. I think that does us a disservice. Feel the weight of your failures. Let the pain in. Let yourself break for a bit. Don't go berserk though and certainly don't build a lifestyle out of it but, let yourself rage with the pain for a while. You need to. There can be real treasure hidden in there too. Then once you are done you will have to make the decision every single day to dust yourself off and keep going.
You may not be where you set out to be but, you are where you are. This is what you are working with today and you can still make the choice to do what you can with it.
Good Luck
Big Love
Ryan
#mentalhealth #itsoknottobeok #mentalhealthmatters