Ask me what my dream was 10 years ago and I would say to be a professional softball player.

I turn 25 this week, so safe to say that didn’t happen. Ask me now what my dream is and I’ll tell you I don’t know. Not because I really don’t know, but because I am afraid if I tell you, you’ll think I’m being corny.

Unfortunately, I have a long ways to go before I really don’t give a fuck about what people think about me.

Right now I only have my moments where I truly don’t care. But talking about what I am passionate about, isn’t one of them. So what is it?

Me. I’m the dream.

That is, my dream is to live a life so full, that it doesn’t matter exactly what I am actually doing, as long as it makes me happy. Yes, I know, you are thinking I sound like every other person in the world and you are probably right. But I promise you, that’s it.

Up until recently I feel as if I’ve been living to survive. Which would be true. I stay at a job that doesn’t make me happy because I don’t want to be without money because I am afraid I’m going to go hungry because that’s what happened during my childhood. Trauma is crippling.

What I’ve been neglecting to do is give myself the benefit of the doubt.

I have come a long way since that trauma, since failing at my first dream, since my last suicide attempt. I have always wished to be one of those people who weren’t afraid to fuck up. Like quit a job with no plan or leave college for a year even if it meant I probably wasn’t going back. I am definitely not. BUT, I’ve been slowly using that towards forming new goals that will make me happy. My life doesn’t have to be completely unconventional but it doesn’t have to be completely predictable either. I am not surprised at where I am but I am surprised about how I feel about it.

Which is why I saw my dream change before my very eyes.

What does the dream even look like? I don’t know. Filled with adventure and memories of me trying new things? Maybe. Filled with me laying in my hammock with no steady income but days where I do nothing at all? Maybe.

I can tell you last month the dream was to get photos taken of myself. And currently, my dream is to try living in a van for a little while traveling and being a photographer. I can tell you last week the dream was to be a mother and a wife. Two months ago it was living in a studio apartment in a Downtown location.

What I’ve learned is the dream is me, doing what makes me happy.

Whether that thing makes me happy only in the moment, or for the rest of my life doesn’t really matter. I just want to live my life and fill it with whatever the dream is. No matter how silly, no matter how unconventional, no matter what other people think.

You truly only get one life.

And I no longer have any will to waste it.