Dream

Contributed by Sara Beth Wald

My dream, ever since I was a little girl, is to save the world.

I know, I know. It’s a bit lofty. But somebody’s got to do it! Why not me?

I’ve never been entirely clear on how I was going to accomplish this dream, but I always had a sense it had something to do with writing.

I did all the right things. I earned a social work degree; got some experience working in the trenches, getting my hands dirty, checking for lice after particularly challenging home visits. Then I earned a master’s in journalism, with plans to become a hard-hitting investigative magazine journalist. 

There were some bumps in the road. I put my dreams on hold to save a marriage, build a house, have a baby, get a divorce, file bankruptcy, rebuild from scratch, get remarried, have another baby, divorce my mother, things like that…

The realities of life hit hard, but deep down I never stopped believing that someday, somehow, I had a place in the grander scheme of things. I took all that sadness and struggle and education and hard work and built something meaningful from it. And my dream felt beautiful and doable.

Until now.

 I’m currently in the midst of clinging to the dream that on my worst days feels as though it’s dying and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

On my best days, I remember that life is hard, and dreams have a way of coming back around if they are meant to be. And of course, there are the lessons… Those aches that happen when it feels like all is lost, only to serve a glorious purpose that can only be seen through hindsight. 

I’ve always understood that saving the world is an unreasonable expectation. And that, like everything, the old has to be torn down before we can build the new. I’ve held no illusions about the challenges involved. And to be frank, I just don’t care. The way I see it, even if I don’t succeed, there is beauty in the trying. 

What I hadn’t budgeted for was… well… I hadn’t actually budgeted for anything. Money, and the quest for more of it, has always bored me. I find it irritating and unnecessary, like a swarm of mosquitos on a mountain hike who seem to have no purpose on earth except to get in the way of an otherwise gorgeous experience.

My efforts at attaining money have always only ever been perfunctory at best. Which, it turns out, is a roadblock to saving the world.

And so I am on a journey of late to heal my relationship with money, which I’ve come to realize is the root of my despair. I’ve run the gamut of approaches.

I hate it!

I don’t need it!

I don’t want it!

Then I was told that money is energy, and if I hate it, why should it be attracted to me? So I changed my approach.

I love it! 

It’s okay to have needs!

 It’s okay to want things!

And then I was told that we repel that which we obsess over. The more we yearn for something, the more we push it away.

So currently I’m on a “come what may” quest. Just do the thing you love, and money will naturally follow. Trust the process.

Is it working? It’s hard to say. Opportunities are flying at me at lightspeed. People and connections and support. But I’ve yet to see an influx of cash that just can’t seem to keep its hands off me. 

Then again, it’s only been two weeks.

And honestly, this is my default. This is how I originally functioned. I made it through childhood fending for myself, worked my way through college and graduate school and never felt resentful or scared I wouldn’t be able to make it work. I had blind trust in the world, in the universe, and in myself.

It was in my mid-20s when that foundation began to crack beneath me, shaken by an unhealthy marriage, a mother who became increasingly resentful of my success, and the development of my prefrontal cortex that woke up one day and said, “Holy shit! This place is a mess!”

“This place” being my life, which was very tidy and organized on the outside, and in shambles on the inside. 

My 30s confirmed my worst fears – I’d been faking it all along. I resolved to bring my inner life and my outer life into alignment. A decade of therapy, a healthy relationship, happy kids, a vegetable garden and a newspaper column. The 40s were looking optimistic.

And then I got sick. Keeping the dream alive took a back seat to keeping myself alive.

Autoimmune disease. That mysterious collection of ailments that leaves doctors shrugging and patients fading into nothing. Your body eats away at itself from the inside out, like an alien invasion on Netflix.

I have thus far beat back my disease, because fuck you, disease! But my dream requires energy that I often don’t have, and money doesn’t grow on trees. (Actually, it does. Literally money is just paper. It’s stupid that we say money doesn’t grow on trees, and it’s stupid that we don’t just exchange leaves as currency instead of cutting down the whole tree. But I digress…)

I’ve never stopped believing that someday, somehow, I had a place in the grander scheme of things. So what is my first small step towards reigniting my dream of saving the world? It’s the same step I’ve been taking, every day, since my first shaky toddler waddle. 

I’m going to keep moving. Keep doing the things. Even when my hands shake. Even when I need to nap. Even when I’m scared and discouraged and broke. Because money does grow on trees, and I don’t love money, but I do love trees. And they are worth saving, right along with everyone and everything who rests in the shade beneath their branches.