wish

Birthday Wishes

I wish…
That I were thirty instead of twenty-one.
That my hair was naturally ginger instead of the weird shade of brown-blonde that it is.
That I was naturally skinny without ever feeling the urges of an eating disorder rule my life.
That I manage to support myself, at least partly, with writing.
That I find a comfortable niche for myself in life.
That I keep the friends I have and love.
That I never stop loving books.
That I become a crazy cat-lady.
That I have a good year.
That I sleep well.
That the people I love continue loving me back.
That Harry Potter was a real person.
That I could have more hours in each day specifically in order to read.
That Israel weren’t so hot.
That Johnny Depp, Davey Havok, and Darren Criss were close, personal friends.
That I could get through J. R. R. Tolkein’s “Lord of the Rings.”

I could keep writing this list forever, adding random wishes for past, present and future. But the most important thing right now, on this relaxing, lovely birthday is that I recognize and appreciate every bit of what I do have. Cheesy? Corny? Yes. True? That too.

Stories

We’re all made of stories.

We’re all living stories.

We’re all making stories.

Everything in our lives can be seen as a story. There’s the story about how you were born, the story of whose braid you pulled in first grade, and when you got braces, and why you chose to take physics in high-school and where you had your first kiss.

We all tell stories every day. There’s the story you tell your best friend about how your date went last night, the story you tell your aunt about whose car you dented last week, and the one you tell your coworker about when the boss got drunk at the office party, and the one you tell your cat about why you’re giving him canned food instead of dry today, and the one you tell yourself about where you wish you were right now.

We all make up stories all the time, too. There’s the story of how you wish your father was alive, the story of whose life you’d want to try out for a day, and the story of when you’ll really feel like a grown-up for sure, and why you’re going to win the lottery next time and where you can picture yourself living in ten years.

But then, there are the missing stories.

The stories of horrible events that need to be suppressed.

The stories that you’ll never know, because there’s no one who can tell them to you.

The stories that will never be, because they’re too frightening to really accept.

Even then, though – there are stories. Every minute of every day of your life. They are stories.

Hidden Wish

There are wishes that are too dear to the heart to be able to give up. At the same time, however, these same wishes, because of being so dear, are often hidden or lied about or concealed even from their own wisher. Wishes like these are the ones that are important. The wisher conceals them from him or herself because he or she knows that facing the wish, trying to accomplish it, will only make it like all the other wishes before – it will be gloried, it will be striven for, it will be boasted of, but eventually it will fall to the wayside like a dusty old garment, too worn out to be of use to the traveler anymore.

These wishes stay close to the heart, and will unconsciously jump into the mind of the wisher and into his or her actions once in a while. The wisher, if sincere, will do all in their power to avoid the seriousness of the wish, will immediately laugh it off as a fancy, as a thing which can never be, while secretly wanting it so much that he or she would give up almost everything to be able to fulfill it.

Why is it that wishes brought to light are so often abandoned? One cannot presume to know – but what is certain, at least when it comes to this humble blogger’s opinion, is that the more serious one is about one’s wish, the more likely it is to be lost amongst the everyday. Better to supress and let it emerge on one with all the slowness of natural progress rather than force it upon and into one’s life with vulgar flashes of neon light.