How to navigate the death of old dreams without dispelling them entirely.

Read more: Dealing with the death of old dreams

I’ve done a few pieces recently on changing careers and returning to old dreams as you’re stepping into new ones. I love these pieces, as they speak to speak in more optimistic aspects of ebbing and flowing with your future. But they miss something. They miss the gut-wrenching, burning excising of an old dream you were once committed to with everything in your being. The dream that lit up your eyes and forced fire into your cheeks just by daring to exist. The very idea of it gave you life. A part of it still does. But fate has its hands at your back tugging you away, braying, “Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.”

Sometimes it’s hard to move forward when you’re still living for the old dream. The one that niggles and dances just at the edge of your consciousness, seeking the answer to why you would dare abandon it. It may even be within your reach – wriggling tauntingly at the edges of your peripheral – but you can’t grab it. Because grabbing it now? It would make you miserable. And miserable? It has no place in your life. Not anymore.

So, who do we deal with it? There are two ways.

The first is to accept that the old dream – how ever reachable it currently is – is outdated and incompatible with the current version of you. See your current reality as monochrome and old, with your eyes set toward your future intentions.

I see my current work world like the “graying out” of an old movie scene. It fades slowly, right in front of me, while everything else outside of it flares into brilliant, cinematic color.

I think it helps – to think of my legal career as something in the past, even if I’m still wading through it. It doesn’t curb the mind-numbing mundanity of it all, but it helps keep me centered because no one wants to walk in the shadows of who they used to be.

That’s why shadow work is so damnably difficult and avoided: few want to step into the old, uncomfortable, and outgrown versions of themselves to piece out sordid emotions. No one wants to shove themselves into tight, ill-fitting jeans just to prove that they’ve gained weight. But sometimes we must because we can’t seize what’s ours if we don’t reconcile what we don’t want. And what we don’t want? Well, it looks a lot like camel toe and a life devoid of color, light. So, you walk toward the light, to the world outside and around you.

The second way is to imagine that your dream still lives, but the timing isn’t right.  Trust that it will round back when it’s time. Your dream is not dead; it’s sleeping. Resting. Just like some of those old dreams you rediscovered in the newest version of you. You step away to come back stronger. That’s not weakness — it’s preparation for something more aligned.

This is a method I put into practice this week. As my writing – and ranting to my friends reading this – shows, I’ve been slowly excising myself from my legal career. Some days it feels fast as wildfire, while others feel like a slow, steady death. Yesterday reached a particularly… thorny juncture. I had already reached the edge of my patience after a scintillating day of sexism and unprofessionalism, when a co-worker good-heartedly mentioned an old dream. Which, of course, summoned an old spiral.

Since as long as I could remember, I wanted to do policy work on the Hill. That was one of the primary selling points of my most recent job: it was an access point to the Hill, while helping good people in the process. As my career progressed, I became more and more disillusioned with the people around me and with the idea of the person I’d have to become to make it to the Hill. So, I started backing away from it. My talents – ripe, and developing – were made for certain aspects of the Hill. But my job was shrinking those talents, ordering them to cower in the corner.  It made the whole dream feel untenable.

This week, we were on the verge of another Hill case. I mentioned being comfortable staying behind and supporting the team from the sidelines.

My co-worker turned to me, said: “It’s a shame because you look really good on the Hill.”

In true “Death of a Salesman” fashion, I watched that old dream smolder under the pretense of old hope because she was right. I do look good on the Hill. The outfits, the hurried pace, the intellectual rigor, the negotiating, the passion – that is all me. I light up when I’m there.

But I do not light up around the people and work I follow to the Hill.

And that’s it, isn’t it? The realization.  The following is the old dream that fits the monochrome. The new dream – the new me – leads. Powerfully, quietly, but not silently.

This position does not fit the old dream with the new me. Not now. But that doesn’t mean it won’t someday.

So, we tuck the dream away for now. For when it’s ready to come back in the way it’s designed to — to serve the fullest version of you.

In some ways, it’s not dissimilar to boxing: sometimes you have to step back, get your form and head right, before you advance with your next move. Maybe you take a hit or two in the interim – such as realizing the sordid despair of delay – but you emerge stronger, more calculated.  More you.

Don’t give your seemingly dead dreams of funeral. Let them live in the past with the optimism of reigniting in the future.

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