The Wild Dream

They told me to dream big.

So I did.

I dreamed of straight A’s, high heels, framed diplomas, corner offices, and skylines from the 28th floor.

I dreamed of marriage, a house, stamps on every page of my passport.

And for a while, I believed those dreams were mine.

But The Wild in me never stopped whispering.

Not loudly, never loud enough to abandon the climb.

Just enough to make me wonder why the victory parties felt hollow.

Why I never quite knew how to answer when someone said, “You should be so proud of yourself.”

There’s a mountain we’re all told to climb.

A summit where happiness waits, if we just hustle hard enough to reach it.

The first peak is survival.

Learn to earn. Provide. Prove you’re not a burden.

Then comes status.

The titles. The house. The curated relationship.

The photos that say, “See? I made it.”

And finally, serenity.

The yoga. The journaling. The search for peace in a life you built to impress.

But no matter how high you go, something always feels… off.

Like you climbed someone else’s mountain.

Like the air up there doesn’t fill your lungs the way you thought it would.

I’ve spent my life asking why.

Why so many brilliant people feel restless even at the top.

Why we silence the part of us that wants to run barefoot across the sand and kiss like it’s urgent.

Why we trade wonder for achievement

and call it success.

Eventually, the questions got louder than the answers.

And I began to notice something.

The only times I felt completely at peace…

were outside the system entirely.

Drinking from a snowmelt stream.

Laughing wild and free in the forest with no cell service and no mascara.

Sleeping under stars so clear they felt like a message.

That’s when I realized:

The point was never the peak.

The point was to feel alive on the way up.

To listen.

To wonder.

To wake up.

My parents figured this out long before I did.

Before I was born, they traded the climb for The Wild.

They built a life around rivers and canyons, Ponderosas and possibility.

They taught me what truly matters: presence, kindness, curiosity, connection.

But I got distracted.

By convenience.

By the pressure to fit in.

By the gleam of those polished, overcrowded peaks.

Now I am awake.

Letting love flow through me like a spring.

Living for mornings that begin with birdsong.

For work that feels like devotion.

For people who speak in truths instead of scripts.

I am building a life where brilliance doesn’t burn out,

it burns bright.

Maybe that’s what the dream was meant to teach us.

Not the American Dream.

But The Wild one.

The one where you don’t have to prove your worth, you just live it.

Where your value isn’t measured by what you own, but in how deeply you love,

how fully you give,

how freely you are.

If you’ve made it this far up the mountain and something still feels off,

you’re not lost.

You’re just waking up.

The Wild is in you still.

Waiting.

Whispering.

That it’s time to stop climbing someone else’s mountain,

and start living your life.