Dreams may be deferred but they need not be abandoned. These dreams — or long-term goals, desires, aspirations, visions for our future — can be hard to remember when unexpected life events demand that we shift our focus. Maybe we go into survival mode. Or, maybe we simply must give time and energy to something more urgent.
Such was the case with my career dream to integrate a longtime passion for understanding human behavior with a belief in the mental health benefits of engaging one’s creativity. While navigating a divorce, a relocation, a long and frustrating job search, and completely unexpected and sometimes terrifying hiccups with my health, I held on to the dream. I admit that there were months when I wondered if I was going to be stuck in survival mode forever. Even if the idea went out of focus periodically, I was always able to reclaim it, eventually, as a real and realistic aspiration.
To bolster my belief that all was truly possible, I created a visualization: me, smiling, sitting in an overstuffed armchair done up with large floral print upholstery. True confession: my inspiration for this visual was Dr. Ruth, infamous therapist and talk show host, because she continued to work long past conventional retirement age. Seeing as I was embarking on this dream career at an age when the careers of my peers were winding down, rather than just getting going, Dr. Ruth was my personal beacon of possibility. Four years later that deferred dream was becoming reality when I was accepted into a clinical mental health counseling graduate program and buying textbooks for my first semester. Woohoo!
P.S. A wonderful film at the 2019 Newburyport Documentary Film Festival was about a local man who’d once dreamt of driving cross-country in a VW. The first time he tried he’d only gone a few hundred miles before the car conked out and died. Forty-five years later he decided to go for a second attempt, holding true to the original plan of traveling in a (now vintage) VW. And as the film showed, this time his cross-country adventure was a success.