The Woman Who Carried the Car: A Dream About Strength, Struggle, and Slow-Burn Success
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I had a dream last night—the kind that lingers, the kind that teaches you something about yourself that’s hard to learn while awake.
I was driving somewhere, and my children were all young again. I typed an address into my navigator, but the directions led me wrong. Everything swung out of control, and suddenly I was careening into a large, deep swimming pool. The dread that washed over me as I looked at my children was profound.
My youngest was still strapped into their car seat. I told them that when I opened the windows, they needed to kick toward the surface. I prepared them, kissed them, and with a deep breath, rolled down the window. (Yes, somehow the electrical system still worked underwater. Dreams don’t care about physics.)
I slipped through the opening and saw the car had tilted. I didn’t think—I just acted. I lifted
the car as if gravity had taken the night off. It was weightless. I held it above my head and carried it out of the pool. Once on dry ground, the car grew heavy again, but I hoisted it into the parking lot where a group of young men stared in astonishment. They asked if I needed help. I told them I was fine, got in, and drove away. The gratitude and accomplishment of surviving that moment—and saving my children—was overwhelming.
Then the dream shifted. I was suddenly watching from a third-person perspective.
The young men were desperate to find the woman who had carried the car. They had video footage of her lifting the vehicle, but somehow the woman herself never appeared in the recording. They did, however, have an item of clothing that had fallen from her car. So they hired a man with a search dog, and the savvy canine sniffed her out.
They found her. They knocked on her door. They showed her the footage and hailed her as a hero. She became an overnight sensation. Every talk show wanted her. Book deals, movie deals, sponsorships—she was instantly famous.
Except the woman wasn’t me.
This other woman—who, for some strange reason, was Lori Vallow Daybell, a woman convicted of child murder, filicide, and spousal murder—took the credit. I watched her receive accolades for something she didn’t do. I struggled financially while she raked in money. I felt anger, but also resignation, because this is the story of my life. By the end of the dream, even I had forgotten that I was the one who carried the car. I, like everyone else, saw only what I was told to see.
It wasn’t until I woke up that I remembered: I am the hero.
This dream feels like an allegory for my life. In that old Aesop fable, The Tortoise and the Hare, I am definitely the tortoise. I’ve watched people speed past me for years, racing toward greener pastures and rainbow horizons while I toil away. And I know many people feel the same. Are the stars against us? Is it fate? Why do some people get victory handed to them while others fail at every turn?
I don’t know the answers. I do know that for some of us, everything is hard. Waking up. Getting through the day. Letting go of yesterday. Holding onto our small, simple dreams. For those who have to work ten times harder for everything, I want to say:
I’m with you all the way.
Nothing has ever gone easy for me. Life is a marathon. And it’s painful to watch people reap success when they haven’t had to work all that hard for it. Some people really do seem lucky.
But I believe in gardens.
If you prepare the soil…
If you plant with care…
If you cultivate and nourish…
You will reap a harvest.
It may not be massive.
It may not make you a million dollars.
But it will be something.
I see all of this through the lens of my writing. It’s something I never believed I could have. The more I want it, the more obstacles appear. I know my writing is excellent—but excellence isn’t enough. You need a dozen other skills. I have to overcome my shyness, my self-doubt, my anxiety, my self-criticism, my tendency to work myself to death, and my toxic perfectionism.
But none of that changes the truth: I was the one who carried the car out of the water.
That was my victory.
Seneca said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
What does that mean?
Success is not random. What people call “luck” is often hidden hard work.
Readiness matters. When a break comes, you must be able to handle it.
You can’t control opportunity—but you can control preparation.
So I’m letting go of resentment toward those who seem to glide through life. I’m forgetting the fakes and pretenders, the ones who hog the limelight without the talent to back it up. And I’m going to work hard.
Because my time is coming.
And I have to be ready.
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