On Grief: Remembering Our Lost Dreams
Tell me about the dream you had for yourself back when you were six. What was it like? By any chance, have you become the person you pictured on that very same dream now? How about the ones you made for yourself at 3 in the morning with the world dark and asleep back when you were 13? And the ones you built when you were 16 or 18 or 20? What happened to those dreams? Have you lived them as they were supposed to be, or did time hold them back from you? As if they were prisoners being kept inside the folds of your memories of those ages like what happened to the most of mine.
I was not much of a dreamer. The upbringing of my family molded me into becoming someone who only has their eyes in the present—right at the focal point of every moment of time. We never really talk about the past and what we pray for the future at home and it affected how I became as a total person. I never had any huge, life-determining kind of dreams such as what profession I would like to take and achieve, not even when I was close to applying for university. However, I love making multiple of little dreams here and there such as wishing what I would like to have for dinner later, or to receive a message from a crush, and the many of that kind of things. And losing those little dreams whilst also not being able to own myself one of those beautiful pictures of hope for tomorrow conjured a huge surge of deep oceanic blues in me that since then, never really left me.
People have contrasting perceptions about the concept of pursuing and losing our little dreams. Others see these dreams as fleeting and tend to look at them with very less value. A perception to which when one loses their dreams, they expect the person to move on in a blink, taking away their time and right to grieve on what was lost. And it is so unfortunate and sad as to how this situation happens so oftentimes that in some cases, it becomes something close to a lifestyle. People don't even have to talk about it happening as it is already what's expected of us to flow with whatever it would be that is about to unfold.
This reminds me of one of my favorite routines that I do back in 2019, when I was still a freshman in college. The social system was a bit too much for me to easily get the hang of the reason why I used to spend and kill most of my time alone in this certain small food and coffee store a couple of blocks outside the university. It was just a very small space enough for a couple of people to hang around with, yet the vacuousness of it was what caught my eye. I love being alone most of the time, and at that time, it felt like the universes had aligned as I thought to myself of finally finding my safe haven. It was my go-to place and the very site that sealed and craddled my worries away about not having any place that I can belong to amidst the city and the foreign academic atmosphere I was shoved and enrolled to. But, after the lockdown and the implementation of the first quarantine, my tie to this place was halted. I had to go back to home and miss the flavor of my favorite usual order of cup of coffee until today.
I never get to talk about this little part of myself. About this little loss from my everyday lifestyle. Not to my parents or friends—not to anybody. And it is sad thinking about how I have to feel this feeling of holding myself back from bringing it up when despite how simple it seems, the amount of nostalgia and loneliness I feel when I remember it, is massive. And to be honest, we do not even have to feel the emotion of embarrassment and so as to holding back, because every little dream we have is as valuable as the big ones. They deserve to be talked about with equal pride and passion. And it is totally valid that we also grieve for their lost too, no matter how long it takes to feel alright again.
You deserve it.
(Hello, loves! Thank you for passing by and giving this article a read. I would very much also love to hear from you about your little dreams and the ones that you lost as well and how you felt about it. Just remember that it's okay to grieve even just for the things that seem simply and small. Your feelings are and will always be valid. xoxo)
