If Wishes Were Horses...

Right now I am supposed to be doing math homework. Right now I could be bowling a few and pounding some jello shots with my co-workers. Right now I could be binge watching the Walking Dead on Netflix.  Right now though, all I really want to do is be inspired...

I miss writing. I miss having the time, the grey matter, the passion.
The inner critic in me says, 'Sheesh, you're difficult to deal with, first you began writing this as a whine-a-thon because you were unemployed and hopeless. Now you're gainfully employed and you are still whining...'

If C.S. Lewis is right and "We read to know that we are not alone", than maybe I write to know that I am still me and plugged into my thoughts. That I am not just the sum total of my job and my struggles with equations and integers, my journey through depression and therapy.

I am coming up on my 40th birthday and I think I've been dreading this day since I was about 13 and realized that one day I'll be 40. I think 40 is the yardstick by which I equally measure and beat myself with over my life.

My parent asked me the other day, noting it was a milestone birthday, what did I want for my birthday? They meant what trinket, what book, piece of jewelry, token of esteem did I want.
When I really pondered the question I realized what I really want can't be bought in any mall.

1. I want it to be 1980 again and to go once more to Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor in the mall with my Grandma and Grandpa G. But this time, I wouldn't care about the ice cream or having my name sounded over the loudspeaker and hear the siren and drum fanfare. I'd look deeply at the faces of my grandparents memorizing every line and wrinkle so I wouldn't forget. I'd hug em' tighter, listen more avidly, and savor every last second. Why youth is wasted on the young who can't possibly appreciate the moments for what they are is beyond my ken.

2. I'd like to be in love with someone who loved me back. For once to look in the face of someone whose face was as radiant with the promise of forever as mine. Someone who'd walk with me in the rain and not care, who'd be as overcome by Beethoven's Fifth, Schubert's Ave Maria, and Handels' Messiah, who'd thrill to the poetry of John Donne, Sonnets From The Portuguese and laugh at Shel Silverstein and Erma Bombeck. Someone who'd be just as happy eating a few M & M's on a park bench or sharing a glass a wine and a plate of spaghetti in each other's company than at the finest restaurant.

3. For more time. I'd like a few extra hours. Maybe a 26 hour day. So I wouldn't always be so behind. Maybe for once I'd catch up or actually cross off a few things off my To-Do list at work that always taunts me.

4. To press the re-set button on a few relationships. Maybe like a computer system restore, I could go back in time before all the viruses and junk corrupted things. So I'd be closer to my sister, my best friend from childhood, a few friends from various jobs who I didn't really value enough at the time to work on preserving the friendships.

5. Go to see Duran Duran and U2 in concert. I never have and as a Gen X'er, I think this is the equivalent of a Baby Boomer who never got to Woodstock like he wanted to.

6. I'd like to make it all the way through War and Peace, just so I could say I read it. Kind of like Sarum, by Edward Rutherford. I read the whole damn thing, I can't remember a thing about it, but I like saying that I read it!

7.  I always wanted to get my picture taken with Mickey Mouse. I never have and as a devout Floridian, that's akin to blasphemy.

8. I want to travel to Maine, Alaska and Nova Scotia. To take the train through the Hudson River Valley. Come to think of it, I just want to travel somewhere on a train, period. It might be that I have watched too many movies from the 30s-40's, but to me train travel always seems romantic.

9. For time travel to be possible. I think I might be happier in less modern times. Plus I always  wished to see Art Deco when it was really real, not just in movies, maybe I could meet my screen idols, William Powell, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Jean Arthur, and Barbara Stanwyck.

10. To have the time to really pursue my passions, to become a better writer. To spend more time on Ballroom Dancing, maybe actually compete.

If wishes were horses...this is how I'd ride.