Nine Years Later, I’m Still Learning How to Dream

Today marks exactly nine years since I graduated.

Nine years since I stood there in that gown, smiling, knowing that I had life figured out. I really thought I did. I had a neat timeline in my head, the kind you don’t even question because everyone around you seems to be following it too.

Graduate at 22.

Get married at 24.

Have kids at 25.

Go back for a Master’s in Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Travel the world.

Get a PhD.

Start a consultancy firm.

Simple, clean, predictable.

Thinking about this today, I almost wanted to laugh not because the dreams were silly, but because of how convinced I was that life would politely follow my plans.

Isn’t it wild how confident we are about the future when we’re young? How we think control is something we possess?

Life, of course, had other ideas.

Somewhere along the way, the script changed. Not gradually. Not gently. It just… shifted. In ways I wasn’t prepared for. In ways I never imagined. And suddenly, the life I had so carefully mapped out no longer existed.

I’m 31 now.

I’m not a PhD holder.

I’m not married — very single, actually (single like a pole, as I like to joke).

I don’t have children.

I don’t run a consultancy firm.

But I am a prolific writer, I am living with a spinal cord injury, I am learning, unlearning, and relearning myself every day, I am taking life one day at a time — sometimes one hour at a time.

And that wasn’t part of the plan.

For a long time, that realization hurt. Not in a dramatic way but in a quiet, unsettling one. The kind that sneaks up on you when you’re alone with your thoughts. The kind that asks uncomfortable questions.

Where did the timeline go?

Did I fail it?

Or was it never mine to begin with?

I’ve come to learn something humbling: we can plan with the best intentions, but if those plans aren’t aligned with God’s will, they will fall apart and not to punish us, but to redirect us. That doesn’t mean dreaming is wrong. I still dream. Deeply. Boldly. Just… differently now.

But if I’m honest, I miss the old way of dreaming. I miss dreaming without fear, without loss attached to it, without having to factor in pain, access, health, or uncertainty.

Before disability entered my life, dreaming felt limitless. Innocent. Almost reckless. Now, dreaming requires courage. It requires sitting with the possibility of disappointment. It requires faith.

And faith, I’ve learned, is not passive.

Faith is waking up every day and choosing to live — even when life doesn’t look like what you imagined. Faith is accepting that detours are not dead ends. Faith is trusting that purpose doesn’t expire just because the timeline changed.

If you had told 22-year-old Lucy that at 31 she’d be writing blogs about disability, advocacy, faith, pain, joy, and resilience — she wouldn’t have believed you. She wouldn’t have seen this life as “successful.”

But success looks different when you’ve been broken and rebuilt.

I’ve learned more about myself in the last nine years than I ever could have learned by following a perfect plan. I’ve learned humility, patience, compassion. I’ve learned how to sit with uncertainty without letting it crush me. I’ve learned that worth is not tied to milestones.

And maybe, just maybe — this season isn’t about having it all figured out. Maybe it’s about learning how to dream again. Not the loud, rigid, timeline-based dreams of my twenties, but softer ones. Braver ones. Dreams rooted in purpose, not pressure. Dreams that leave room for God to surprise me.

So here I am.

Nine years later.

Still dreaming.

Still learning.

Still trusting.

And maybe that’s okay.