When I was a little girl I remember asking my mother what she’d like to have for Christmas. She’d always say some version of the following: “I just want you kids (all five) to be good!”
It wasn’t until I was a mother myself for awhile that I understood her words.
A couple years back I was walking through a popular local high-end mall before Christmas with my twenty-two year old and oldest daughter, Andrea. The stores were festooned with holiday paraphernalia and their windows and aisles stuffed with merchandise that seemed to flow out into the corridors. As we passed the Coach store I could see her eyes fall on an eye-popping $300 what couldn’t have been larger than 6x8 inch number that wasn’t much thicker than an inch. “How in the world would you get a tube of lipstick into that thing let alone a hairbrush?” I thought to myself. Her gait slowed and then she stopped before the window, most definitely enchanted. We stood there for a few minutes, perusing the merchandise, pointing at this and pointing at that before moving on. After a few steps, I said to her, “You know, Andrea, you may not believe this at this time, but there will come a time in your life when these merchandisers won’t be able to PAY YOU to take what they have in their shops home.”
She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “What do you mean?” her voice rose, panic right beneath the calm. “There will never be a day like that for me!” she proclaimed. I could see the slight falter and I pounced.
“Yes there will be. Believe me, there will be,” I promised. “There will come a day when the last thing in the world you want will be any of this stuff.” She shook her head and we moved on – I'm quite sure the day ended with something she might forget in the short term but will remember, fondly, some day.
My husband is forever asking me what I want for…
…Valentine’s Day
…my birthday
…Christmas
…Sweetheart’s Day
…his birthday
…Mother’s Day
…our anniversary
I work really hard to figure things out for him to give me and lately I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just too much work to do this. I’ve had enough tropical vacations in my life. Fur coats have lost their charm and my jewelry sits in a bank safe. The car I have works just fine and for goodness sakes, no I don’t want to go to Turkey. Here’s what I want.
I want to go in the direction of my dreams. I want to go unfettered; I want to be unimpeded in my pursuits. I want those around me to stop telling me why something won’t work and start telling me, “Okay let’s try.” I want support in my undertakings and encouragement; I want praise when I accomplish something. I want someone to dry my tears, to be patient with my ramblings, to reassure my doubt.
I want what everyone wants. Is that too much to ask?
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.” ~ Henry David Thoreau US Transcendentalist author (1817 - 1862)
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