May only some of your dreams come true

Living with finiteness at midlife

Here’s the question on my mind: What if all my dreams don’t come true? Because it looks like a lot of them won’t. And spoiler: maybe that is really ok, and even better.

For me, November is at the heart of all that’s cozy and all things hygge. We closed out October with costumes and neighbors, and now November settles in with cooler air, the last blaze of autumn color, and leaves wisping to the ground. Cider is on the stove (so to speak because it’s technically not actually there yet) , holiday plans taking shape—I’m one of those who genuinely enjoys planning—and my favorite celebration, Thanksgiving, is the main course of the month. The evenings will glow with twinkle lights, Advent arrives with quiet expectancy right at the end, and the whole season hums with the anticipation of Christmas.

Here’s our wonder woman.

I could just as easily talk about the less charming parts of this season : parent-teacher conferences in the midst of work, juggling meetings on days the kids are home from school (so many of those days in November!), the scramble and stress of Christmas gifts together, and getting the house ready for a string of gatherings. The HVAC is acting up, the disposal quit, and the gutters have to be replaced before the winter rains hits. The calendar is stuffed, my son’s basketball season is in full swing (think lots of driving and later nights), and there’s the tender-sad mix of anticipating the holidays with my dad as dementia continues its slow drift. But I digress.

I imagine myself placing a YOU ARE HERE pin on a timeline of life. Looking back at the jumble of goodness and grief in life that has brought me here, and looking ahead at the gifts and loss ahead. For sure, I am in the messy middle of life. In the blur of life and its busyness (or maybe for you, it’s somber stillness), I can feel a bit lost in my own story. And the letting go of dreams I may have had.

---

Practice: Draw out your life timeline. Make a note of the major things that have happened and dreams come true in your life up to this point. Pause at your “you are here” mark. Is there anything else that you really wanted in life and prayed for that you actually have now? Write it down.

---

---

With all the change in my work life, professional identity and relationships, even in the midst of the intensity of this season, I can feel a thread of loss--what if my dreams I have don’t come true? I am not just talking about pie and sky dreams. But the dream of what life will be and could be if I just worked hard enough or had the energy that I needed or somehow made things happen. Reality narrows to what is and what can no longer be.

Be it creative impulses, a dream job, relationships with adult children or a spouse, or even a kind of house, level of health and energy or a friend group.

What if dreams vanish into vapor?

This seems to be the spiritual work of midlife. We reconcile what might have been with what is. Now, I know that there is still a lot of life and possibilities ahead. However, there are more closed and closing doors now then open ones. Dreams that have sprung a leak are floating to the ground like tired helium balloons, while missed opportunities wave at us as we go by.

The loss of what is not or what might have been is real for all of us. The work of midlife is realizing that for-better-or-worse is not just a marriage vow, but is the covenant that you make between yourself and God. For all the dreams that unfold and and the ones that don’t.

Midlife often arrives not only with crisis, but with covenant level clarity. The house of your life is mostly built, and you finally have to look around and admit that some of the rooms will never be what you imagined.

This where the deeper invitation lies. The first half of life is about building your life; the second half is about releasing your grip on all the possible blueprint options. When the dream doesn’t happen, something in you dies, but that death clears space for something truer to grow. It’s not the end of dreaming; it’s the transformation of dreaming. It’s the commencement of the deeper life.

So what do we do?

Grieve honestly.

Bless what didn’t come to pass.

That’s what we do.

And then, with a kind of weary grace, we start tending what’s still alive in us. We notice the dreams that are more of us not others—ones that aren’t about achievement but about depth: becoming kinder, more discerning, more at home in our own skin. The deeper life is the movement from “doing” to “being,” from building the house to making it a home—our home, our home and no one else’s.

What bravery and courage this takes to stare our lives in the face and bless them and release what is not ours to hold or build!

This is the work of the covenant that we made with God. When we give our life to God we say “You will be my God and I will be your servant for now and for always, no matter what.” Even if all the dreams don’t true, and gratefully because all the dreams don’t come true—because who can bear the weight of all we can dream?

So I am blessing what didn’t come to pass. Thanking God for it. Thanking God for this covenant that I have made between me and the Eternal God that my mortal life with its limitations, finitude, and smallness is enough. This house of my life bears the grace that God gives me and it is enough for the life God has given me to live.

Not because I can’t dream more, but because it is in the finiteness of walls and doors, ceilings and floors that the real authenticity, the real dream comes to be.

The real house of my life is built. And that is very, very good.

Mary Oliver wrestles with life and its limitations in her poem In Blackwater Woods¹.

To live in this world, you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

This is us at midlife. All the dreams we have and all we are releasing.

Dear friend, may only some of your dreams come true.

And may the rest fall away and invite you into the deeper life that is your home in God.

1. You can read the full poem here.