I wish I may, I wish I might…

My childhood friend Jen over at SpritesKeeper.com hosts an event each week called Spin Cycle, where bloggers produce their takes on a certain topic.

While I’m trying to get away from deep thinking and furrowing into my brain too much on this blog (as suggested by another friend of mine) I’d thought I’d contribute to the fray.

So this week — it’s all about wishes.

Wishes form the fabric of childhood. You squeeze your eyes shut blowing out birthday candles, fervently wishing for the wonderful present that your tiny mind could muster. Like a My Little Pony or Cabbage Patch Kid. You beg your parents for pennies to toss into water fountains, and hope with the *plock* of the coin in recirculated water (often in malls or hotels) that your humble wish would come true.

As we grow up, wishes become the stuff of dreamers. People start telling you that wishing doesn’t make it so. Wishing seems fruitless and a pointless task. So that childlike wonder of wishing something into being, that belief that if you wish hard enough maybe it will come true, loses its traction in old age.

But you still have your moments. You wish you could lose those extra pounds. You wish your child grew up to be a well-educated, contributing member of the world, with an independent mind and spirit. You wish you could be elsewhere, doing other things, besides the drudgery you endure. You wish children didn’t die of horrible diseases.

Unfortunately, none of these things can come by squeezing your eyes shut and blowing out all your candles.