Sunday, December 16, 2007

Wanting What I Can Handle

As you know, I’m an only child. So I’ve been a bit of a wanter most of my life. When I was pretty young, I was totally altruistic and only asked for what I needed. It wasn’t until later, until I entered school really, that I really got into wanting things. That was when I realized that the things I wanted said a lot about me and who I am.

As I’ve grown up, those definitive things have ebbed and flowed between the dreams and fantasies and material things. Everything from habitually wishing on the first star every night to thinking about what I was going to wish for when I blew out my birthday candles, from making the annual Santa wish list to carefully dividing that wish list into needs and wants.

When I was four, I asked my parents for a big brother for Christmas. When I was 12 and my parents were temporarily separated, I made a huge wish list and at the top was that my mom move back in, which she did on Christmas day. When I was about to turn 16 and wishing against all hope for a car. When I was 20 and getting ready to spend 6 months in Germany, wishing that I had the strength to handle it all. When I was 23 and had just had an abortion and was begging for forgiveness. When I was 25 and a week away from my wedding and wishing that we had eloped. When I was 29 and a good friend was killed in Iraq and I was, again, begging for it to not be true.

And now, my wish list seems to grow longer by the day. Everything from the 42” Sony Bravia HDTV that I’ve been drooling over for months now, to a new car that would get better gas mileage and give me the room I need day to day, to financial stability, to more time with my family, to having the ability to move more into town to cut down on our daily commutes, to having another baby, to getting new carpet in our house. The list just seems to grow on its own these days.

But I was thinking this morning as I was lying in bed enjoying a rare few minutes of quiet before I got up and joined the Sunday morning family fray, that I wonder if I could handle everything I want. I was thinking particularly about the wanting another baby part. That’s been at the forefront of my mind lately, has been actually since my daughter was about 2 months old. Yes, I know I’m crazy. Moving on.

When I was a teenager desperately wishing on that star to find my one true love, I look back at that girl I was and there was no way that I could have handled my one true love at that time. I was a mess. I probably would have taken one look at him and run away screaming. Or I would have ignored him completely, not able to recognize him for what he was.

When I was a complete mess after having an abortion just out of college and wishing with my whole being to take back that decision, I wonder if I could have handled being a mother at that time in my life. When I thought I had my entire future not only mapped out, but figured out.

When I was laying on our kitchen floor sobbing after hearing that Brian had been killed in Iraq, begging for it to not be true, I wonder if I would still have the same compassion for the men and women in the military that I do now after having known him and lost him.

Everything I ask for, wish for, are things that I think will make my life easier, more comfortable, more interesting, just more. And I wonder if the real lesson that I’m supposed to be learning is that I am given everything not only for a reason, but when I can handle it and stand to learn the most from it. Even if it hurts and even if it’s hard.

Maybe it’s not about getting what I wish for. Maybe it’s about getting what I can handle.

1 Comments:

Blogger BirdMadGirl said...

{{hugs}}....

7:08 PM  

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