Disappointment
I am a dreamer. I dream up fantastic stories for myself, wrapped up in hopes and desires for a life full of love and adventure and beauty. Dreams are wonderful things, but they can be dangerous. When we let dreams be the barometer of our lives, we're bound for disappointment, because, all too often, our dreams are too far off, too flimsy, or too impossible to realize. Perhaps I'm being pessimistic and cynical here, and rightfully so. I've been disappointed far too much since I set foot on the the journey of adulthood. I never realized how hard it would really be. I never even considered that my dreams would be smashed over and over again by a world that has little patience for sensitive creatures like myself. I never expected that my life-long dream to become an opera singer (a dream I was very close to realizing) would fade away as I gained unexpected knowledge of myself in my first year of college. Despite my new found self-realizations that led me to drop the dream, I was left lost and confused, and suddenly without a solid goal regarding my passion for singing and performing. It's over the course of the last 10 years that I have been desperately seeking something to fill the gap. Could it be a partner, children, a real home, an actual career? I know I'm being self-pitying in some ways, but I really feel that my last real success was when I won the Oregon State Solo Vocal Championship in the soprano category my senior year of high school (that was over 10 years ago). It's a goal I'd set for myself in the 8
th grade, and I did it (by a mixture of hard work, luck and fate, I suppose). It was a moment in my life that allowed me to truly believe that dreams could come true. Since then I've chased hope against hope, one possibility or another, and come out the other end feeling nothing but failure. Here I am, single, uncertain, confused, nearly 30, wanting nothing more than to have even one of my dreams come true (and I know I'm not the only one). I've even tried to give up my dreams, to no avail, hoping that I would feel better with no expectations, but I don't seem to have the capacity to be dreamless. No, if only to escape the pain my empathetic heart sponges up from the cruel world, I create dream after dream and desperately attempt to bring them into being. It just seems that what I'm trying to do, isn't going, that the goals I set never come to fruition. Is this for lack of passion, poor self-discipline, or inexperience? Or am I just going in the wrong direction?
I was just telling my sister that singing is the one thing I've always wanted, even needed to do in my life. Whenever I sing, people tell me they want more, they tell me how successful I could be. It seems so simple, it seems that singing is the dream I should pursue and that it would easily come true if I only did it. However, with the loss of my original dream to be an opera singer (which was a 14 year project), it seems strangely impossible. Now when I sing, I feel a terrible sadness over-shadowing the bliss of it. I feel like I can't find any definition in what I'm doing, no specific genre to work in, no specific goal to go for. Underneath the sorrow, I still deeply love singing. I especially love it when it comes out in waves of energy that emanate from my whole body into the hearts of others, like a divine offering. I have no doubt that I have a special gift and talent for singing, I just don't know what to do with it. I can't stand the thought of wasting it, not doing something with it, not sharing it with others. I just can't seem to find a container for it. My talent for singing is lost in a formless world, or perhaps it's smothered by the unrealized dream that once gave it definition.
My disappointment lies in the fact that I expected to have it all figured out by now and that all the work I've been doing, internal and external alike, would bring my dreams to realization. It's not so. My singing dream is only one of many that seem to have failed or been delayed or gone unrealized in the past 10+ years. I am un-partnered, childless, isolated, stuck in the city, and groping for a sense of artistic direction. While I recognize it could be a lot worse, I also feel a deep loss for what I have not accomplished. I am filled with the fear that the future will continue to bring with it, dreams crushed. The disappointment that I feel at present, threatens to stop me in my tracks, it threatens to make me give up, it wants me to stop trying. Despite this, I press ever forward with at least a glimmer of hope and a resolve to take the risk that I will continue to fail. Short of ending my life, which is a ridiculous proposition at the moment, what else can I do?
3 comments:
Like man, the dream's NOT dead! You've just got the venue wrong.
Pioneer Square, every Friday Night from 5 to 6 a solo concert: Nova Dawn, (boom box or guitar accompanied, or A Cappella, whatever it takes) sings opera, folk, pop, whatever the hell pops YOUR cork.
STOP MAKING IT SO COMPLICATED! SHOW UP! Be Blissful! Let your PASSION show. Let the Healer weave her spells!
Aho!
Papa
Um.... thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, it doesn't really make it any easier, I'm sure you understand. Maybe if you held my hand to whole way, but you're not going to do that, and no one else is either. I'm all on my own, which is at once liberating and unbelievably depressing. I want the best for me too... but I can't live up to anyone's expectations, not even my own. No, the dream's not dead, it's just broken. I'm not really sure what to do at this point. Maybe I just need a break.
You're right, nobody is going to hold your hand the whole way because you are a talented, intelligent, and capable young woman who doesn't need training wheels anymore. But, that doesn't mean the rest of us don't support you and your dreams or that we won't hold your hand from time to time. We all want to know there is someone nearby we can lean on if we start to lose our balance and a little hand holding from time to time reminds us we are loved and cared for.
As for dreams, not all of us have such a clear image of what we want to be when we grow up. You are blessed to have such a clear dream AND the talent and skills to accomplish that dream. If you need a break from pursuing that dream or if you find that you need to refine your goals, well, that's life. Recognizing and acknowledging those changes is maturity. There's a reason they're called growing pains.
You are on your own in the sense that only you can achieve your dreams but you are never alone as you walk the road to success. You have many people who love you and support you the whole way. You cannot fail as long as you learn from your experiences.
You are talented and intelligent, blessed and intuitive. You are passionate, you are a healer, and you have the power of the Goddess behind you. You have all the knowledge, skills and abilities you need to accomplish whatever your heart desires.
So, when you're ready, go for it. I know you're gonna knock their socks off!
Love,
Stom
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