This City

I dreamt of this place once, long ago. It was such a vivid dream that has stuck with me over time as if it were memory. It came at a time when I thought I had found belonging. I thought I had everything I would ever need. I was comfortable in that life. Still, in the darkness of sleep where emotion and logic couldn’t intervene my subconscious dreamt of more for me.

I chose this profession so long ago and by such happenstance I’ve often wondered if rather it chose me. I can’t remember what came first, wanting it or being pulled by it. I had found a place though with colleagues who I thought respected me and valued my knowledge. I had fallen prey to the dreaded “we’re not just coworkers, we’re family” line. I had never belonged anywhere before, not really. Not at work, not school, mostly because I never went, I didn’t even find belonging in my family which should have been my birthright. So, it was easy to fall victim to “we’re not just coworkers, we’re family”, and it was so easy to feel that was true. It was so easy for me to pretend I didn’t see the red flags or feel the discomfort beneath my rib cage.

I used to visit this place I sit now and wonder what it would be like to be here. To have been the kind of person that belonged here. The idea sent a thrill through me. It felt impossible. That dream though felt very real. It even starred the colleagues I had come to dysfunctionally believe was my family. They were in the dream as we toured a facility full of work I dreamt of studying. Standing amongst scholars in my field my heart skipped a beat and my eyes widened. Mid dream someone pulled me aside and told me I didn’t belong where I was, I belonged in this city, with them. At the end of the dream I said goodbye to my work family and with tears and a half-broken heart left them behind. Then I woke up half sad it wasn’t real, half relieved I wouldn’t have to excel, I could stay where I was, comfortable.

The thing about this place is that it is the heart of this field. The industry built around one of the top colleges for it. As I said, I never went to school, any school. I never thought I could be here. I never imagined I could belong here. Instead I daydreamt and remembered that one dream I had that one time and I imagined a whole career here. I imagined a whole life I was told I could never have.

After a handful of bad decisions fueled by a handful of devastating events, I lost that work family. I lost them as colleagues in real life and they shattered the image of themselves as my “family”. It was all gone. Only when my entire life had been torn down around me could I believe just maybe I could make that dream I had that one time real.

It was 2020, the year of the unbelievable, so I did something nobody believed I would. I accepted a job in this place. That job I had daydreamed of I imagined into existence because now it’s mine. With every passing day I kept dreaming bigger and bigger. What if in this place, this city I could become better than I had imagined? What if I could not just work here but study here? What if I could compete with the best?

All the sudden anything can happen. All the sudden I’m living the life I imagined. I’m exceeding expectations and climbing higher and higher. All the sudden I’m in a place that is just work. I get to just work here, there’s no manipulative family dynamic I have to navigate like a land mine. There are no fragile male egos I need to make myself palatable for. All the sudden I don’t have to make myself smaller to fit in here. Here in this place I dreamt of that one time and I am able to focus on excelling at my job and I did. All the sudden I’m in this city, chasing stars…until all the sudden This City broke my heart.