I would like to say that I don’t place a whole lot of stock in wishing, but I’d be lying. I make a lot of wishes—not phrased as such, not necessarily on stray eyelashes or falling stars or birthday candles, but frequently enough that when I sat down to write this I thought, “I don’t really make a lot of wishes,” and then immediately laughed at myself. Maybe my definition of “wish” is more flexible than blowing the seeds off of dandelions, but I think that many of the things I do are sort of wishes in disguise.
What’s important to me about all this accidental wishing is that it doesn’t stop there. I’ve wished for a lot of things throughout my life and gotten very few of them. But sometimes putting words to a desire is exactly what I need to define the action I’ll have to take to get there. I don’t mean “manifesting” as in magical thinking, I mean if I say I want to someday have a house where I can keep bees, I ask myself why I can’t do that now (a homeowner’s association, lack of experience, unwillingness to make the financial investment), and how I can start to rectify that (eventually moving, taking a class, saving money). The wish is “keep bees,” but it won’t happen if I don’t start addressing the steps to get there.
Maybe that’s just goal setting, no magical name necessary. Maybe the affirmations I practice on the suggestion of my therapist are just wishes for a better self. But there is value in making them, because expressing something as a desire or as an existing truth help me figure out how to make them real.
Anyway, here’s a drabble.