Dear, American Dream

Food for thought while you eat them ribs & deviled eggs this holiday...

Jul 02, 2025

A Personal Note Before We Begin:

Thank you to everyone who read, reached out, and prayed for my family after the passing of Grandma. We are processing through what it means to lose the matriarch, how that shifts our family roles, and more. But thank you.

As a reminder, today’s essay (which I made for the 4th of July) and the essay later this month “What if Mr. Rodgers was in the Marvel Universe?”, are explorations I wrote some weeks ago. More evergreen, less trendy. Come August I’ll be back at it and starting to hint at some exciting things coming to this space.

Bless up.

Happy Forth of July!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the American Dream—what it promised us, and who it promised it to.

Since the election, a lot of political conversations have centered on how many Gen Z and Millennial men—especially white men—voted red. Not necessarily because of policy, but because they felt abandoned. Left behind. Like the Biden administration had forgotten them.

Feel how you feel about that.
But they felt that way.
And they voted from that place.

For many of those men, the American Dream isn’t just a goal. It’s a birthright.

A house. A family. A career that makes sense. A life that stacks up to your parents’ by the same age. And if you don’t get there, it’s not the Dream that’s broken.

It’s you.

There’s a quiet, aching anger. A sense of betrayal.
Because for a lot of them, the Dream isn’t just a destination.
It’s part of their identity.

They were raised to believe the promise would carry them.
And when it didn’t, when the milestones never came, they didn’t just lose the Dream.
They lost themselves.

I don’t know if I wrote this letter out of empathy for those men…
or because I know I’m more like them than I want to admit.

Either way, it felt important to write, especially with the 4th of July coming up.

What follows is a letter to our beloved, the American Dream—not as a concept,
but as someone I used to know.
Someone I used to love.

I wrote it through the eyes of these men I’ve been trying to understand, the ones who feel like the promise left them behind.
I don’t claim to speak for them.
But I do recognize pieces of myself in their frustration.
And in writing this, I’m trying to make sense of that too.

– Dom
P.S. - Y’all bet not be putting any raisins in that potato salad!

Dear American Dream,

I’ve been trying to write you for years.

But every time I sit down, the words feel too big…or not big enough.

Sometimes time makes things clearer. But most of the time… it just makes things harder to face.

I don’t know what made me write today.

Maybe I just missed you.

You had a face. A voice.

You sat with me in the grass behind my house that one summer night in ‘01, remember? I must’ve been ten. The air smelled like cut grass and charcoal smoke. You laid next to me with your hands behind your head, staring up like you owned the sky.

Your hair looked like it had been cultivated from the sun. Your eyes were the kind of blue that only happens in storybooks and patriotic anthems.

You looked like every movie star and cereal box champion.

You looked like America’s future.

And you told me the stars were just maps waiting to be followed.

You said we could go anywhere. Do anything. That my life was going to mean something big.

As long as we stayed together.

And I believed you.

I could almost feel your hands pushing my back every time I ran after something…auditions, jobs, love. You sat on the bleachers during my soccer games. You were in the room when I got my first acceptance letter. I caught you in the mirror the day of my first big award, smirking like, “See? Told you so”.

You were my secret. My guardian angel.

You were everything.

And then…

You disappeared.

No goodbye. No slow fade. Just…gone.

I kept looking for you. For years. In boardrooms and backseats. In overdraft notices and “we regret to inform you” emails. In motivational podcasts and Sunday services. In empty bottles and mail boxes. Even in the small victories, especially in the small victories, that didn’t feel like enough.

You left me.

And I don’t know if I’m writing this to ask you why…

Or to finally say it out loud:

You broke my heart.

Was it me?

Did I stop believing too soon? Did I take a wrong turn somewhere? Was I supposed to keep chasing even when I was losing myself?

Because I did everything you said.

I said the prayers. I drank the Gatorade. I got to work early. I stayed late. I kept my head down. I hustled. I got the experience. I checked the boxes. I smiled at the interviews and laughed at the bosses’ bad jokes. I networked. I sent the thank-you cards.

And when things didn’t work out…I didn’t blame you.

I blamed me.

Because you taught me to.

You had a way of making failure feel like a personal flaw. Like I must not have wanted it enough. Like everyone else had some divine clarity that I just hadn’t earned yet.

And for a while, I wore that shame like a suit. I tailored my silence to fit in rooms that were supposed to be for me. I told myself there would be struggle before the breakthrough. That you were just testing me. That you’d be back when I was ready.

But you never came.

And you’re not coming… are you?

You just left me standing here.

And some days, I hate you for it…..

I hate the way you smiled at me like I was special.

I hate the way you made the future feel inevitable.

I hate the way you told me the world was fair.

You knew it wasn’t.

You knew some of us were never going to make it through the gates you promised. You knew the system was rigged, but you kept showing up in Super Bowl commercials and graduation speeches like a con artist in a crisp white suit.

And I believed you anyway.

I believed you like a child believes in magic. With my whole heart. With tears in my eyes. With everything I had.

And now?

Now I don’t know if you ever existed at all.

*sigh*

One day, I don’t know when, I lost it.

I screamed into my steering wheel.

Punched the dashboard until my knuckles bled.

I screamed, “In God we trust,” and felt like I was taking the Lord’s name in vain.

Not because I didn’t mean it. But because it never meant me.

You were the god….the dollar was the altar.

I gave everything to you.

And then I apologized.

Because that’s what you taught me to do.

Swallow it. Tuck it in. Smile harder. Work longer. Speak less.

Be grateful for the opportunity.

Be quiet when you’re bleeding.

I loved you more than anything.

Do you hear me?

I loved you.

I talked to you when no one else was around.

I defended you when people said you were fake.

I gave you everything.

My childhood.

My ambition.

My joy.

And you left me.

You used me.

You lied to me.

And the worst part?

I still want you.

I still find myself looking for your face in places I know you don’t live anymore.

And you’re not there.

You don’t come to see me anymore.

You don’t write.

You don’t call.

You don’t explain.

You just haunt the quiet.
You just haunt my joy.
You just haunt me.

And there’s still a “me” in here. Sitting in the backyard, under the stars, waiting for your shadow to stretch across the grass again.

The grass is taller now.

The stars look smaller.

But I still sit out here sometimes.

Just in case.

I wonder if you ever think about me.

I don’t know why I’m still writing.

Maybe I thought saying all this would make me feel better. That if I said it out loud you’d have to answer. That maybe somewhere out there, you’d feel this ache too.

But you’re quiet.

Like always.

And now I’m just here, sitting with the ghost of you.

Wishing I could hold the weight of you again and feel your hand brushing mine as we point to the stars and imagine eternity together.

I wonder if you remember how much I loved you.

How hard I tried.

Or if I was just one of thousands—millions—you whispered to, until your voice blurred into static and you moved on.

Anyway…

If you’re still out there

If you ever find this

Just know I looked for you.

For a long time.

Longer than I probably should have.

And maybe…

I still am.

With love,
Your forgotten

🚨 New Series Alert! 🚨

Hey yall!

Like many creative professionals, the truth is I need something steady while I’m building slowly. And I’ve been searching, quietly, for about two months.

So instead of being ashamed about that (don’t even get me started!), I’m writing about it.

#LinkedOut is my new weekly-ish series on the funny, frustrating, and sometimes humiliating reality of being a highly skilled, often unqualified creative person…trying to land a job/contract in 2025.

It’s cheeky. It’s reflective. Maybe a little desperate?

The full essays will drop every Thursday at 12 noon right here on Substack — but I won’t be sending them out via email.

I know your inbox is sacred. So if you want to read them, you’ll need to check the new #LinkedOut section on my Substack page. Or follow me on LinkedIn, where I pretend to have it all together and post the essays.

Come for the job hunt. Stay for the coping.

Okay I’m done!