I long for the soft life.
It wasn’t always like this—that wasn’t always my dream.
I have an entrepreneurial spirit and a indistinguishable flame in my heart. I’m ambitious by nature—but not ambitious by means of wanting my name on the corner office or the luxury house in the gated community or the pillars of fame and fortune. Those are fine dreams for someone else, but that’s never been me.
No, my ambition isn’t tied to power and control or monetary value or even household name recognition where you’re on a first-name basis like Taylor or Sabrina or Olivia. Could you imagine? Susan? I don’t think my life was fashioned for that, anyway…
My ambition instead is tied to wanting to create change in the world—and that, in my experienced opinion, is much more challenging and devastating. Challenging because creating change requires you to let the world change you first. It demands a level of surrender that ambition rarely tolerates. It asks you to dismantle every false structure you’ve built—every way you’ve tried to prove your worth, every identity you’ve used to hold yourself together—and then to keep showing up, heart-first, even when you’re raw and exhausted from the process.
Been there. Still doing that.
It’s devastating because all you want is to be heard, seen—understood—in a loud and distracted world that’s committed to misunderstanding you.
I have a private collection of videos saved on Tik Tok under the name “Wishlist.” Nope, it’s not the Taylor Swift version, although somehow the essence of her song seems pretty accurate to what I’m getting at. My collection is over 400 videos of dreams and soul wishes—sometimes foreign places I want to visit or adventurous experiences I want to have, but mostly it’s my dream life within the sanctuary of a home.
It’s a quiet cottage on a beautiful piece of land near some kind of water source—a brook or stream or river. There’s a flourishing garden in back from which I harvest vegetables and herbs for meals, fresh flowers for the table. Sometimes I relax out there on my wooden swing and watch the current as a thousand scenes from my forthcoming novels play out in my head—scenes I’ll put to paper later. Sometimes, when it’s raining, I’ll look out the kitchen or living room window and watch the droplets dance across the water.
I have animals—definitely dogs and cats, maybe some ducks and mini-goats and chickens. I have no idea how to raise ducks or goats or chickens, but I’ll learn. The chickens give me eggs that I use for meals, and I pass the extras along to neighbors or a food bank. I also have no idea what to do with the goats—do mini-goats produce cheese? Maybe I’ll have a neighbor who has farm animals and horses instead, and their paddock reaches the edge of my property so I can enjoy their company without all the work of caring for them.
(I’ve cared for a lot of people in my lifetime. I want to be cared for. I want to take care of me—even for just a little while, even for just a few years of this peaceful life, this soft-hearted dream.)
Inside, my cottage is decorated in a blend of French provencal charm and boho chic and dark academia. It’s an eclectic mix of everything I love—gauzy linen curtains that waft with the summer breeze from open windows, curved mahogany bookshelves that store my collection of favorite authors, and colorful rugs layered across the hardwood floors for added comfort, blankets and pillows everywhere because I’m in my cozy era. Art from independent artists bought at markets and thrift stores are hung on the stone walls, and crystals and candles line the mantle and windowsills next to sentimental pictures and pieces I’ve collected throughout my lifetime.
I make tea in the kitchen—a touch of honey, just like a long-ago love used to make it—and scribble poetry and pieces of dialogue in a journal on the counter. Music is always playing at a low hum throughout the house—Ed Sheeran or Trevor Hall or a Broadway musical or Yo-Yo Ma. My musical taste is as eclectic as my decor.
My days are spent working—though it never feels like work. That’s what happens when you create a life you love. I might do a Tarot reading or coach someone through the dark nights of chronic illness, or I might spend a few hours researching a plant that will only show up once in some obscure scene of my manuscript, and even then the lines might never make it to publication, but they’ll have existed once, even if only in a draft in my mind. And on the weekends, I’ll host dinner parties with family and game nights with friends.
I’ll never miss a moment cuddling with the cat and snuggling with the dog, knowing my time with them is far too precious and way too short. Sorry, that should probably be plural. Cats and dogs. It was always a dream to have a sanctuary for dogs, and while that’s one of many dreams I’ve laid to rest, I’ll always have room for their forever home.
In this soft life, I’ll keep creating.
I’ll write books that move people, that make them think but most importantly, that make them feel. I’ll offer programs and presence to guide people home to their hearts, help them remember love and remember themselves. I’ll bring awareness and education to a misunderstood illness and encourage hope for the healing. I’ll help organize food drives and literacy campaigns and donate to the thousand causes that speak to my heart, and I’ll keep doing all these things I’m doing now because it started here.
But I also want more. I want more for my life and I want more for the world.
That’s the thing about ambition—it never really leaves you. It grows, and you grow along with it. This is all my heart has ever called for, all I’ve ever strived for—to change the world in big ways even if I have to take these small steps.
All the while living in the softness and peace and love that my soul deeply desires.
That’s where my ambition is. It’s not the kind that climbs ladders or chases lights. It’s the inherent wish to leave the world just a tiny bit better, a little more loved.
That’s the legacy I want to leave behind.
Want more words?
Read the books!
Available at www.montourscity.com and www.susandawnspiritual.com