Step 1 to Achieving Your Dreams

Communication

For most of these past two years, I lived back in my childhood home. I kept a simple routine and didn’t try to expose myself to that much opportunity, opting instead to process my feelings and focus on what I knew I could control. I would sometimes look back on this period, the last year especially, as a dumpster fire, but looking through the smoke I know there were valuable, meaningful developments over the course of the year, too. Namely:

1. I worked on developing stronger friendships

2. I studied statistics and finally completed an online program I started years ago

3. I planned and survived a trip to Asia with my parents and my brother

4. I ran a marathon an hour faster than I thought I would at the outset

5. I transitioned away from a team that wasn’t a fit for me and found work I enjoy

6. Towards the end, I finally moved geographically and ended a 2-year relationship shortly after

I’ve since been able to focus more on self-improvement, and I’m realizing that I have something to take away from my experiences.

There is no such thing as a definitive path to achieving your dreams, and whatever step 1 on The Path is is your call. My step 1 is communication. I hope that you can take something away from this story. It’s not the whole story — the entire raw story was a bit too much for a post. This reads like a memoir and I edited it a bit after meeting a writer whose work inspires me and whose words of feedback and advice have reminded me that there are stories within all of us that are waiting to be told.

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I biked to Cold Stone on a warm summer day, imagining myself an ice cream cake. At the ice cream store I sampled their ice cream flavors before ticking the boxes on a paper slip that I believed would make up my ideal birthday cake.

Later, as I was readying myself to blow out the candles on the cake, my sister’s fiance asked me to share a piece of wisdom from my 24 years of existence.

In a moment, I replied, “Know what you want, and don’t let anyone stop you from getting it.”

I thought I had it figured out back then. Resolute on living a life that would check the boxes I had come to value, I knew what I wanted. I never thought that I would be the one stopping myself.

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I spent that summer chasing butterflies and biking through the countryside. I went on hiking trips with my two best friends, camping in New Jersey with one and exploring Maine with another. I wandered through fields of flowers to my heart’s content. I solo-traveled to Richmond, VA, where I caught the sunrise and sunset each day and satisfied all my cravings for pastries and macaroni and cheese.

This is also the summer I started a new job and a new relationship. My new boss and boyfriend were both named Marc. I felt optimistic that things would be just great. And, I told myself, this checks the boxes. It’s what you want. If you aren’t happy, you will make yourself be happy. I signed my job offer shortly after returning home from New Jersey. I started dating the boy after a week-long layover on the way back from Maine.

The bumpy waters glistened, surrounding me in my kayak. My paddle stayed horizontal in my clenched hands, dispensable because the current rushed me forward. I was a buoyant bliss, vibrating with the sun’s rays.
Every once in a while a flash of white surfaced: a fish—belly up, its life drained. I looked into those beaded eyes and thought, a bad omen? I pushed myself past it with my paddle and the fish sunk into the dark waters behind me.

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At the end of the first month, I realized that the job role I signed for was not as exciting as I hoped. At my previous company, where I was spear-heading data analytics and transforming operations for a food-delivery startup, the CEO gave me one piece of advice before I left to a new company: “Make sure they know how amazing you are.” Now, I was trying to explain this to Boss Marc as I told him that I wanted to be more involved and that I wasn’t feeling fully utilized. I received a Slack message saying that I would report to someone else because Boss Marc was too busy to answer questions about career progression. My next manager was supportive of my career goals, and said he tried to advocate for me, but he couldn’t change anything for me, and eventually, he left the company. I was handed off to an even less helpful manager. A chasm was growing, hindering me from reaching the decision-makers in my company. I felt underestimated, underutilized, and misunderstood. There was a lack of recognition and respect.

Meanwhile, I poured my soul into a wedding. As the sister of the bride, I gave heartfelt toast telling the audience why I knew my sister and her husband were a perfect couple. It was a crazy day, I was running around for much of it, and I managed to bring my family tears of joy multiple times that weekend. Boyfriend Marc was there for all of this; I invited him to the wedding because I wanted him to see who I was and where my heart was. It was difficult to feel seen, though. On the day of the ceremony, Boyfriend Marc sent me texts that noted the design of the lightbulbs in the hotel room and the asymmetry of the chandelier in the lobby. But on maybe the biggest day of my life so far, we never talked about its significance.

“Love means care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication, reliable support and lifting each other up, and willingness to help each other grow.”
- Excerpt from my wedding toast, paraphrasing Bell Hooks

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I kept trying to make my job work for me as much as I could. I was motivated to prove myself to Boss Marc and had hope of an eventual promotion if I worked hard enough. I was a single-person data team, and at some point, someone had to become the leader of the data team, after all. I flew to the HQ and arrived dressed up, wearing heels, in makeup. The office turned out to be pretty small, with the people showing up to work in person oftentimes complaining about having to do so. The city the office was in felt a little dead, and I decided that I didn’t really want to live there unless I was offered a promotion first. It never felt like home there.

Fast-forward to the end of winter, when I went on a road trip with Boyfriend Marc. The sights were amazing—The Grand Canyon, Sedona, Watson Lake, Hoover Dam, Death Valley, Mammoth Lakes, and Lake Tahoe—but, the fact was, I was high-strung in spite of the surrounding nature and cozy AirBnBs. My panic when I called my sister from Las Vegas was intense. I told her about the tension between Boyfriend Marc and me and how I didn’t know what I should do since we were only halfway through our roadtrip at that point. The single-unit homes we rented were cold facades of what home really was, and I wanted to Uber-and-plane myself out of this as quickly as I could. But the anguish was all mental and therefore could be overcome. It wasn’t healthy, but it wasn’t dangerous.

We stopped at Chinese restaurants on the road. Drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, I lingered on the premonitions we pulled out of our fortune cookies from Panda Express.
For me, 
    “The end of a chapter opens the door to new discovery.”  
For him, 
   "Your boundless heart will make space for one more.” 

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Spring came, and I took a week off of work to travel to the Blue Ridge Mountains with my family during my brother’s spring break. On the car ride, I laid my purple spiral-bound notebook on my knee and jotted down ideas. I started detaching myself from my work as my source of purpose and meaning in life. I was thinking about what side hustle would take that space.

I told Boyfriend Marc that I wanted a break from dating for a while. He agreed, although in the end it was so hard for both of us to say goodbye. We did care about each other, as friends at the very least. The next day, we went to Six Flags together because despite everything, we wanted to continue having a good time.

The swing carousel and log rides were placed just how I remembered from grade school field trips long ago.
I was back—holding hands with a boy this time. Middle school me would have screamed.
We rode one roller coaster, the wooden one that constantly screeches. The ups and downs filled my lungs with air and pressed them out again. I walked off dizzily in rapture and clutched his steadying hand. 
The question so predictable it's practically a ritual: "Do you want to go again?"

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For the next year and a half, I continued to work under Boss Marc and I continued to date Boyfriend Marc. It wasn’t based on any really rational decision, but I felt locked in. It was a time full of some highs but really low lows.

There’s often a danger to locking into a contract or a relationship. Those commitments can absorb you and shut off outside streams of communication. Instead of exploring, you are now justifying why you chose what is right in front of you. I have no further obligations to either Marc and I have felt incredible gratitude for the new discoveries I have made since then.

Opening channels of communication and ending my self-imposed isolation has healed me to a large degree. Quality communication with others is not all one needs. At some point, you still need to take a pause and think for yourself, but I caution that echo chambers and limited access to new perspectives are often damaging.

So, before you tell yourself that you know what you want, I challenge you to answer:

Have you explored enough alternate perspectives to actually know what you want?

Don’t let thoughts keep circling in your head. Communicate.