What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode? – Langston Hughes (“Harlem”)
Long before I sat down to pen this post, I had been thinking about the fact that I’m running out of time to accomplish my goals in this life. It hasn’t been easy lately: coming out of an almost 6-week depression, with more down days than good. Battling PMDD and other chronic health issues, feeling like I live in the luteal phase. Navigating the new normal in a relationship that has since run its course – and losing all hope for ever having a love that lasts; of anyone sticking around. Trying to get my head above water across multiple areas of life, only to find myself constantly floundering and more behind than ever. Let’s face it: living in survival mode doesn’t allow for much else – and accomplishing anything beyond the bare minimum, getting through the day (ideally sober), and taking care of your insatiable cat is too much to ask. There are some days I’m amazed that I can continue my run streak and marathon training on little to no sleep, minimal energy, and almost zero motivation. But running has saved my life – and continues to – and is always worth pushing myself.
One day, while I was on the track completing a speed workout, the above work of literary genius from the esteemed Langston Hughes popped into my head: and so I asked myself, “What does happen to a dream deferred?” We all know I struggle with acceptance – sometimes it’s easier to tell ourselves that things will get better; that the pendulum will swing back in the other direction (as I hypothesized in this post); that we will get everything we want in life, if we just try hard enough. Isn’t that what we’ve been told our whole lives? But then we find out that’s not always the case – and what happens if we don’t accomplish our goals? What happens if we try multiple times to qualify for Boston, only to give up on the sub-3:30 dream? What about if we move somewhere new – and rather than it being the shiny fresh start we had hoped for, it’s rife with new types of noise pollution, relapses, the greatest heartbreak, difficulty making friends, and problems adjusting? What if we struggle for the rest of our lives to stay sober – and that memoir never gets finished or published? What if we did truly suffer in vain – and our story never helps anyone else, for the sheer fact that we couldn’t save ourself first? What if we think we finally got it right and we found unconditional love – that everything we had endured up until this point was worth it to have met our person at long last – only to be so terribly wrong? What if we have to accept the pain and unending heartache of being alone, while everyone around us settles down and has someone with whom to share their life?
We adjust and we adapt. We give ourselves some grace – and then we take time to reevaluate our priorities in life. We keep trying, sometimes crawling or taking a few steps backwards just to be able to take one step forward. We look at how far we have come – and that we’re not the person we used to be. We remember the inner strength and tenacity that allowed us to get sober in the first place, the very same determination that carries our tired legs through to the finish line; we remind ourselves that we are worthy of every single dream we have in life – and that those dreams take time, hard work, patience, and failure. We laugh at the irony of it all, knowing that everything makes for a good story with the right passage of time, and then we cry – a lot. We get angry at ourselves for the months and years we’ve wasted and we get mad for wanting “the wrong things” in life. We remember that one day, we’ll look back on all of this and realize that this, too, made us a whole lot more interesting and a lot stronger; that there is always strength in the struggle. And then we go to bed thinking that maybe those dreams haven’t dried up; there is hope for them yet.