I Didn’t Know My Own Dream Until
I Let Go of the Wrong One
Recently, I started working on another dream of mine. And being the stubborn, curious soul I am, I decided to walk myself through Module One of my Re-Claim Your Dreams guidebook—you know, to see what this whole dream-reclaiming business really feels like when you’re in the thick of it.
Well. The very first question of Module One is a humdinger:
What dreams have you let go of? And why?
At first, I sat there, pen in hand, thinking, Well, damn. Because the truth is, I have let go of some dreams. And for the first time, I had to really sit with that and figure out why.
One dream in particular stood out: The Happily Ever After.
You know the one—marriage, til death do us part, the whole nine yards. The house. The shared routine. The expectation that two people are meant to be one unit forever.
And here’s the kicker: I don’t even want that dream anymore.
I let it go, and I have never been happier.
Why Did I Let It Go?
Because I finally realized something that took me years to admit: I am just not wife material.
And that’s not a flaw. That’s freedom.
Once I stopped clinging to what others expected of me—once I silenced that nagging voice whispering, Shouldn’t you want this?—I freed up so much mental and emotional space. And what filled that space? Me. My own self-damn life.
Here’s What I Found Instead:
I love learning about myself. Not in a “self-improvement” way (ugh, enough of that), but in a holy crap, I actually LIKE who I am way.
I adore period dramas. Turns out, without a husband around to dictate the remote, I discovered the absolute joy of Downton Abbey. The civility! The storylines! The dresses!
I am not obligated to be anyone but myself. And that is the most liberating realization of all.
And here’s what this has to do with Re-Claiming Dreams:
Before I could even begin to figure out what I truly wanted, I had to clear out the old, inherited, hand-me-down dreams that were never really mine to begin with.
And that’s where it starts.
Not with a five-year plan. Not with a perfectly mapped-out goal. But with one simple (and, let’s be real, mildly terrifying) question:
What dreams have you let go of? And what’s waiting to take their place?
Because sometimes, the most important part of reclaiming your dreams… is making room for them in the first place.
