CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'RE CONFUSED.

. . . aka, shouldn't I be happier??

During a recent reread of Don’t Let the Music Die, a line jumped out at me—but not for the reason I originally wrote it:

Jessica says to her older sister, Avery:

Not long after that, I picked up Ashley Poston’s newest novel, Sounds Like Love, and I was met with a line that sent me down the same mental rabbit hole:

“No one told you what to do after you made it to the top, after you accomplished what you set out for…”

And then I remembered a conversation I’d had years ago with Dr J. While out walking our dogs one night, I asked why he didn’t seem to set goals the way I did—or even talk about his goals much. He told me it wasn’t that he didn’t have them, but that the one he thought would take ten years to reach showed up much sooner than expected. And the surprise of that left him feeling a little unmoored.

All of these things led me to a single question:

What happens when the dream you’ve been chasing is suddenly behind you?

Or said another way, what do you do when the goalposts are in your rear-view mirror?

The easy answer is: Well, Annmarie, you set a new goal. Dream a new dream. You move the goalposts.

But I think we both know, it’s not always not that simple.

Because when you’ve wanted something for a long time—when you’ve poured all the parts of yourself into a vision of your future—yes, reaching it is incredible. Yes, you’re grateful. You’re damn proud. You’re maybe even a little astonished.

But there’s something else, too. Something quieter. Something that looks and feels an awful lot like grief.

As Joni in Sounds Like Love goes on to say:

“…the grass wasn’t greener, that you didn’t feel any more whole, that whatever you were chasing and finally caught didn’t fill you with the permanent kind of happiness you expected.”

We live in a culture obsessed with getting there, but almost no one talks about being there. No one warns you that your longtime companion—the hope that kept you going—might suddenly pack up and leave town.

We rarely talk about what happens after the book deal. After the promotion. After the wedding, or the finish line, or the weight loss, or the moment the dream finally says, “Okay, you’ve arrived. You did it.”

And perhaps the hardest part? Everyone expects you to immediately move on to the next thing.

Nobody talks about the emotional hangover of success. Or the quiet ache in a pivot.

So what do you do?

Well. . .

You celebrate (loudly or quietly—the confetti is optional). You rest—not as a reward, but as part of your recalibration process. You listen closely to the part of you that feels untethered.

And…

Before you erect new goalposts, take stock of who you are now. Because chances are, you’re not the same person who dreamed that dream in the first place.

Get quiet and ask yourself:

· Do I still want the same things?

· Do I crave something bolder—or simpler?

Reassure yourself:

"That mattered. I made it. And now, I get to decide what matters next."

Always remembering:

It’s okay to feel disoriented after you arrive.
It’s okay to pause before you pivot.
It’s okay to admit the “trophy” feels emptier than you expected.

Because, oftentimes, the most unexpected journeys begin not when we chase the dream, but when we finally catch it . . . and give ourselves permission to dream again.

 

I know you're an avid romance reader because you're here and made it all the way to the bottom of this post. So . . . as a HEA fan, have you read all the books in the Storyhill series? Even Fine Tuned? If not, check out Mick and Jessica's story HERE.