I Used To Be A Dreamer, But Now I Can’t Even See Myself In The Future

“Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?”

I paused, stunned and dumbfounded.

Whenever people asked me that question, I had visions laid out before them. I had detailed and vivid descriptions of the person I aimed to become and the future I wanted to create. I would speak with unwavering certainty, my future stretching out before me with endless possibilities. That question was something I could answer in a blink of an eye. But now, I can’t answer it. I don’t have an answer anymore.

The future that seemed so clear became blurry. I couldn’t envision myself in the future anymore. I couldn’t see what I’ll become, couldn’t catch a glimpse of the life I will live. I don’t know what I’ll do now and what I’ll be doing someday.

I’m a person of goals and plans. I’ve always wanted everything to be planned out, the steps along the way to be designed, the signs of risk and instability to be forecasted. I’ve always strived to be ready at all times. But now, bewilderment and helplessness loom over me. It’s as if I’m stranded in the middle of the sea, enveloped in a cloud of fog, flummoxed with no clear direction to navigate.

It’s not that I’m dying or that I want to die. I just… I lost a dream. Along the way, I shaped myself to align with these aspirations I hold dear, to fit in the mold of my future self I aspired to be, each step bringing me closer to my goals. I worked for it for years, only for it to become a ghostly echo of what could have been — a raindrop lost in the vastness of the ocean.

Maybe that’s what happens when we let go of things we were sure of, things we thought would be constant, things we thought would come to life. When they’re gone, we’re left adrift. We feel a poignant absence. I’m tolerating this wretched absence — the absence of the person I thought I knew so well, the person I had imagined becoming.

I know I can still pursue my dreams. I can still act upon them even as I tread a different path. But the reality is stark. I no longer have the schemes once outlined and the canvas of my future I used to paint — it’s blank now. Maybe this belief is just a way to console myself and cling to that small flickering hope.

I keep telling myself it was just a dream, that I’ll learn to love this new track, that I’ll become someone I still want to see in the mirror, that I’ll get used to it. But perhaps I did die the day I left all my dreams behind and took another ride without looking back. The version of me that I always held onto, longed for, and planned for died. And so, I have I. Maybe the reason I can no longer see myself in the future is because the dreamer inside me is growing tired of facing the reality. I’m afraid that if I start mapping out my dreams in the stars again, they’ll once more become distant echoes in the corridors of my mind.

Perhaps, I really am dying.