I have very few memories from my childhood that I can recall with perfect clarity.
But there is one.
I was sixteen years old. I had just moved back to Iowa after living with my dad for six months. He had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and life suddenly felt unbearably heavy. Home was chaotic. We had very little money. I worked after school and on weekends at a small bakery in Valley Junction, driving an old primer-gray Plymouth Horizon hatchback that barely ran.
I felt lost.
Then one afternoon, on my way to work, a new song came on the radio.
Drops of Jupiter.
For four minutes, everything changed.
Nothing about my circumstances was different, but somehow, I was.
The song made me feel alive. It reminded me there was something more waiting for me than the life I was living. It gave me hope before I had any evidence that things would get better.
I remember singing it at the top of my lungs.
I held onto that feeling.
Over the years, I found myself searching for it again and again—that quiet certainty that life could still surprise me, that beauty still existed, that my story wasn’t over.
Years later, when I dreamed of creating my first skincare oil, the name came instantly:
Drops of Jupiter.
I never questioned it.
I didn’t realize until much later why it mattered so much.
That song wasn’t just a song.
It became an anchor.
Looking back now, at forty-one years old, I understand how important that season of my life really was.
There has always been something inside me that refused to give up.
A quiet optimism.
A belief that life could become beautiful, even when it wasn’t yet.
JoyWild was born from that belief.
This ritual oil is more than skincare.
It is an invitation to come back to yourself.
To remember that hope isn’t something you have to earn.
It’s something you can return to.
Because sometimes all it takes is one moment.
One scent.
One song.
One ritual.
To remember who you are.
In a world that constantly pulls us away from ourselves, JoyWild is an invitation to return.
To yourself.