End of Someone Else’s Dream

Tonight, my business partners gave me a buy-out offer on a business I helped launch. I didn’t think the partnership would last long for various reasons, but I also thought I’d lose my initial investment. So this offer should make me thrilled. But instead I’m completely pissed. Like “seeing red” pissed, “driving 90 miles per hour on back roads” pissed.

I’ve seen the end of this partnership almost from the first moment we decided to pay the fees to create the LLC. Is that the consequence of experience? — to see the pattern that is the mountain that will release the rock that will roll along that path and turn in a 75 degree angle so that it hits your house in a perfect line to take the whole thing out? …seeing how it would eventually happen, but still you build the house and you see the rumbling of the ground, and then you just…wait. That’s me. And I should know better.

I turn 46 this year. My partners are in their early-30s. For a year now, I could see them second-guessing, changing, adjusting, putting on a congenial face, hiding their intentions, trying to gently edge me out, rudely pushing me away at other times, forgetting to mention that they had a partner in the business, demanding time and money or energy at precisely the moments when I couldn’t give it. I saw it all for exactly what it was. And so it isn’t their fault for not knowing how to come clean: it’s my fault for believing that it could ever have been anything more.

The thing is: I liked my friend’s idea. I wanted to support her and I forgot to ask whether she had the skills to make it work. I forgot to ask if I had the time to really be a part of the business. We forgot to ask each other what we wanted the business to be because we were so caught up in the concept. My idea of what the business would be was bigger than hers. She didn’t want any part of my vision, but she didn’t want to dampen my enthusiasm for what her business could “someday” be. And now she gets to keep her idea and I will exit from it like I never had any part of it at all.

I feel Angry. Sad. Used.

But this story isn’t about me losing out on a business venture. This story is about realizing that I’ve done this over and over and over again. I put my heart and energy and love and money and thought — all the actual things I have to give — into someone else’s idea or dream. Not my own. In considering all the times I’ve played this sequence out, I’ve realized that I’m not as bummed out about the end of the relationships as I am about the end of the dream — the collective illusion about what kind of house we’ll have, the places we’ll travel some day, the experiences we’ll give the kids, the hobbies we’ll pursue some day.

Thing is…when am I going to support my dream?

I’ve had many roles in my life and worked in many different industries in my career, but I’ve spent very little time doing the ONLY THREE THINGS I ACTUALLY EVER WANT TO BE DOING which are: Travel. Read. Be in a coffee shop. Mostly in that order.

So, you entrepreneurial types will say, “Well, open yourself a bookstore-coffee house.” Duh. I’ve been dreaming about that since I was 17. Here’s my disconnect: I do not yet believe that WHAT I WANT is as important as what other people want.

This is how I marginal-ize my Self.