The Life List with No Future

I forgot how to dream, and joy became a stranger

Dearest Reader,

Welcome to Wildflowers Grow. I’m Alice Wild, inviting you on this wild journey with me: seeking truth beneath the surface. The place you’ve arrived is a soft landing for women just like you and I, who have walked through challenge and are learning how to live—and write—their way back to life. This is a place to remember who we are beneath what the world asked us to be.

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With so much love,

Alice Wild

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Her eyes are distant.

A stark contrast to the vibrant decor, lively conversation and pleasant music. There’s a beautiful party going on all around her, but her polite laugh and masked smile is unseen by everyone but us—the viewer. This is how the Netflix film The Life List opens: with a young woman named Alex who claims to be happy—content, but has quietly stopped dreaming. This becomes ever more apparent as the party unfolds.

Earlier, in the car, Alex and her new boyfriend practice all the questions that are sure to come—comments laced with judgement, prodding into her personal life without invitation. Alex takes a deep breath, and heads towards the party, bringing in her “famous” bean salad. Instantly, she’s surrounded by “successful” families—complete with husbands, pregnant women, children and babies.

It’s a painful reminder of where Alex feels she’s at in life. One she swallows down as hard as the champagne in her hand.

The judgmental remarks come at her, almost as hard and fast as the gulped Champagne:

“I heard you had to give up teaching.”

“—And you’re working for your mother now?”

“—And your boyfriend has a job at a record store? I didn’t know there were record stores anymore.”

Fast forward to a contrasting next scene. It’s dark. The festivities are over and we see Alex visibly relax as she walks into her mom’s bedroom—a place that feels safe; it’s warm, low-lit and inviting. Their attempts to connect all evening at the party—and failing, are finally rewarded here: in a warm embrace.

Her mom asks a similar question, this time more direct—and without the judgement, “Seriously though. What is going on with you?” As the viewer, we know the truth. The champagne guzzling wasn’t for nothing. Will Alex admit it? Especially in the safety of her mother’s arms, who she obviously shares a very special bond?

“What do you mean?” Replies Alex, pulling away from the embrace and in the same instance: the reality of her life.

Her mother sighs, “I don’t know. I feel like maybe you’re floundering a little bit. Feeling a little lost.”

Alex looks away and defends herself quietly, “I have a new boyfriend and a great job…”

Her mother shakes her head—she is so warm. There is love in her eyes but also a mountain of concern, “It’s not who you are. It’s not what you’re passionate about.”

Alex scoffs, rolling her eyes, “Passion is overrated—besides isn’t that what my generation is all about? Lowering expectations and letting go of childish dreams?”

As this warm scene of love and denial comes to a close, we learn that her mother’s concern is grounded in something heavier than surface-level worry. Alex finds out her mother’s cancer is “back” and quickly, the camera fades to a black dress and the family attending their mother’s funeral. It’s a gut punch, but there’s another one coming: Alex finds out that her siblings and in-laws receive a lavish inheritance—yet she’s expected to inherit the entire company—coined her mother’s “favorite” child, but she doesn’t.

Alex receives nothing, except a worn and tattered old piece of paper—the life list she made at thirteen. And now it’s something she must do in order to receive her inheritance.

On this list are some beautiful dreams and aspirations:

• Be a great teacher

• Make peace, not war, with dad

• Learn to play Clair de Lune, so mom will finally shut up about it

• Help people and make a difference

• Do stand-up once in my life! I’m funny

And the list goes on down the page, full of the spark we all felt in life when we were young—before the “real world” got to us and the light went out in our eyes like Alex. Before we did everything everyone told us to do: went to college, got “careers”, started a family and now that we’re older—life has hit us, over and over again. What happened?

My throat tightened as I watched.

I had a dream list too once. Vision boards. A five and ten year plan.

I had dreams of living on a sprawling acreage, writing books, traveling the world. I wanted to speak on stages and maybe even change lives. I was full of fire—certain the future was filled with promise and possibility.

But somehow, slowly, quietly… that version of me faded.

And was silenced completely.

Later that week, another movie would deliver an additional punch, strangely aimed in the exact same spot—as if the universe at large, was attempting to drive the realization as deep as possible. And of all things, it came from a silly animated family movie called Migration. I found myself relating more to the anxious dad duck than the bold adventurer mom.

A once-dreamer who now flinches at risk. Hesitant. Fearful. Focused on survival, not wonder.

When did this happen to me?

How did I go from the sparkling, wide-eyed girl to a woman in my late thirties, eyes distant and glassy, who no longer dreams or plans—even for the Rocky Mountain vacation (a place my heart and soul used to love) that is mere weeks away?

No joy. No future. No hope.

Alex holding her childhood “Life List”

A Life List with No Future

To learn the answer, we have to go back in time a bit. Back to 2019, when we traded those glorious Rocky Mountains for the old hometown prairie. As the details of our new life began to eerily reflect my deepest childhood pain—pain my brain had locked away—becoming ever louder, the dreams I once had, subsequently quieted and eventually slipped into shadow.

Then one day, out of the blue, my brain couldn’t take it anymore and all the memories of a terribly traumatic childhood cracked open like Pandora’s Box.

Flashbacks. Shut down. Survival mode.