Dream Graveyard

I’m not trying to be melodramatic, but I feel like this is necessary so I can move on. Move on with what? Life. I have been stuck for the last 9 years. Maybe longer. Definitely longer if I’m honest. (Maybe since 5th grade when that boy spit on me and called me fat.) I had a list of dreams. Not big dreams. Modest dreams. Or so I thought. My 14 year old self dreamed of a family, a great husband that adored me, great kids, a house, and pets. As I grew older, my dream became a little more intricate. My 17 year old self, as a freshman in college, knew the University was going to be the place where I met my other half, my split apart, The One, some guy who FINALLY understood me. My 19 year old self wanted to become a Pan-African Studies College Professor. Well, none of that happened for reasons still unclear to me. My 21 year old self decided I would go to law school because I hated blood and didn’t want to go to med school. I NEVER thought about being a lawyer. In fact, I bought into the LIE told by law school recruiters: a law degree is versatile, you can do anything with it. (Of course, later in 2008, I would overhear a judge, a 20 year veteran, say “I still don’t know what else you can do with a law degree besides practice law.”) I didn’t have the One, and I thought for sure I would find him in the prestigious halls of law school. And then my dreams could begin. I had certainly gave myself a great set up: a top tiered law school in HOTlanta, the Black Mecca, the Black Urban Paradise, the Land of the Black Bourgeoisie. Well, that didn’t happen either and, by the way, I despised law school and wanted to drop out almost instantly. I was even homeless for about 3 or 4 months in Hotlanta. Moved by to Louisville. Failed the bar. (Had to teach the subjects to myself because I couldn’t afford a couple of thousand dollar prep class.) Pass the bar (after taking a break for a LONG time). Became a prosecutor. How did I get here, I wondered. A prosecutor? No where in my dreams was a vision of Jack McCoy. I’m 34. Single. No kids. No pets. No family of my own. A career I just fell into. No house I own. These dreams are dead. I gotta find some new ones. I have to lay these old ones to rest. I got given them the proper burial. I have to release them. They are weighing me down like a ship’s anchor and pulling me further and further into a dark abyss. I’m not exactly sure how to do it. But the dreams are gone.