The Power of Wishing

Earlier this year, as part of a writing exercise from The Right to Write, one of the writing books I'd been devouring, I wrote a list of 25 wishes - things that I either wanted to introduce or increase in my life. After enumerating each one, I pondered how do-able each of them actually were. Nothing required winning the lottery or giving away all of my possessions. In fact, the item that I thought would be the most challenging (that was potentially in my control) was "I wish I could stop grinding my teeth".

While no genie or fairy godmother has appeared or waved a magic wand, I've made enormous progress in a half year. I wished to spend more time with family, be closer to Trent's siblings and to help my parents more. This was the summer of family - my brother visited twice from Oakland, my sister once. We saw Trent's parents three times instead of the usual once. Trent's brother came up from San Diego to visit. I ran into Trent's sister at the local vegetarian coffee shop. And as my father's been having health problems, I see him more than I have since my first year in the dorms and now have actual conversations on the phone that he initiates (he's not much of a phone talker). Last Sunday, my mom came over so we could cook recipes from her new vegan cookbook.

• I wished I had a youth literature book club... and I have an invitation to attend one later this month.
• I wished to travel to Africa... and I have a trip planned for next summer.
• I wished to be a mentor... and I am part of the first Washington Library Association (WLA) mentor program pairing.
• I wished I could spend more time singing in a group... and I sang with a number of new folks in my bluegrass singing class.
• I wished I could make fabulous sushi... and I made tasty (though not very technically proficient) sushi twice this year.
• I wished to spend more time with kids... and this summer I went camping with four kids under five, helped a friend whose husband was out of town with her daughters' bedtime routine and held my oldest friend's new baby for the first time.
• I wished I knew how to meditate... and I've started to calm my monkey mind at least some of the time.

Not everything is perfect. I still spend far too much of my time commuting (about 3.5 hours roundtrip daily), though I do enjoy the reading, writing, knitting and bicycling that I fit in each day. I still don't find it particularly easy to measure outcomes. The small container garden was never planted - I'm hopeful for next year though. And my brother and sister still live two states away.

But I'm going to keep wishing and keeping track of my hopes to see what new dreams start to come true.