The Glass Elevator

December 26, 2025

I remember watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as a kid and feeling oddly uninspired by the glass elevator at the end.

Uninspired might not be the right word.

My logical brain always snagged on the mechanics.

How is that even possible?

That’s not how elevators work. They need pulleys and electronics and rules.

Elevators need rules.

I think my young, trauma-wired brain couldn’t grasp the idea of destinations that weren’t already known—

paths that weren’t mapped, sanctioned, or safe by someone else’s definition.

Now here I am at 47, standing at the top of my personal Mount Everest, stunned by what’s in front of me.

I expected the descent.

The long, punishing hike back down through the death zone.

Steep declines. Ice. Snow. Falls of consequence.

A return to base camp.

To return as me—proud of the climb and fundamentally unchanged.

But emotional Everests don’t work that way.

There is no required way down.

In fact, down isn’t even the right direction.

The summit isn’t an ending.

It’s a launch pad.

A place to step forward as a stronger, sharper, more refined and clearly defined version of myself—and leap into what’s next.

And my mode of transportation is a glass elevator.

Transparent. Limitless.

With endless buttons—

each one offering agency instead of permission.

No preset route.

No rulebook.

No ceiling.

And this time, I’m not headed out alone.