The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

be careful what you wish for

"be careful what you wish for" 

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

And to this platitude/bit of sage of advice I would often snort and shake my head. What sort of moronic statement is this? You want something and you get it, and you find that it's a bad thing? A pox? It could even beget tragedy?

How many blue nights did I spend in bed, bargaining with God and falling stars to make the man of my heart love me? I put all of my energy into wishing, back then, tried prayer and Wiccan love spells, and none of it worked. He went on with his life, I went on with mine and I suspect he didn't give me a second thought despite what I can only call my unnatural attraction to him. I think I might have cried the day he left town, even though I had a new boyfriend by then, a life which seemed to be ambling along despite the death of my daydream, and I did my best to forget about him because there really was nothing else to be done. I decided that there are reasons for everything which happen in life, and that I was feeling a sense of loss for this person who didn't seem affected one way or another about me because I was supposed to learn something from it, except, I didn't know what. I couldn't even find the proper amount of embarrassment to wrap around myself, after years of cow-eyed yearning and aimless walks past his house when I knew he'd be there. A teenaged girl with a crush bigger than she was, I had somehow become a woman who still had that crush shackled to her ankle, and I'd drag it along beside me while I tried to get on with things: he'd been my ideal, and now my ideal was gone without ever dismantling the idol I'd built.

One day, many years later, I looked at my life with a more mature eye. I'd never forgotten him, hadn't let too many days pass without his image in mind, though it was often benign and lacking any kind of real longing. When I took stock of the situation for what it was, a young girl fantasizing about a man with a guitar, I knew that what I'd experienced was no more real than the image of him I'd created. I'd been glamoured by his glamour, and so many years later, I realized that somewhere in the world was an older version of himself, one who had disappointed other women, other friends, one who often got too invested in his own self-worth, who never put someone else's needs before his own. Obviously, I've googled him, because old habits never go away, and while I know his life is definitely exciting and fantastical, I also know that he has caused others significant pain in pursuit of his dreams. If my wishes had been granted, if he'd seen me in the same way I'd looked at him, I believe I would have experienced more pain than I might have been able to handle later on. His death grip on his aspirations would have always meant I'd be the one he'd let go of first. Ultimately, my wish is to be loved and be loved purely. In a sense, then, I got it, and it didn't include him. Begrudgingly, I will admit, that I was always better off.

I think that most dreams which come true do so without your knowing it. They tiptoe in, they take a seat without making a sound, they do not speak above a tickling whisper. It is up to us to see them, to give the proper appreciation and to understand that we are always subconsciously moving toward that which makes us happy. For some, being sad makes them happy, but that's another topic entirely. For me, the awareness of all my realized dreams hit me about four months ago. I was standing in my living room, having just placed a little, antique vase that I found in M's things in the basement (impossible to tell the age, but it is stamped and appears to be nineteenth century, maybe French in origin), and I took a step back to admire it and nearly fell over. In an instant, all my wishes and prayers came back to me, like what one might experience in a near death situation, with flashes of their past spinning in front of them. I remember a conversation I'd had with my friends one night when we were in our early twenties, sitting in an empty apartment that one of them had just rented, the very first friend to have her own place, and we were gutting a doughnut box while chatting about what we envisioned for our own respective houses.

"I want a lot of antiques," I'd said, "I like the look of them, the feel of them. I like knowing they've lived other lives because it's so interesting. I also love warm colours. I'm not an IKEA girl."

The apartment I'd been in at the time was being decorated with a southwestern theme, with Mexican blankets, clay pots and the odd cactus. Not my thing, but my friend at the time thought it was rather timely. As I stood back in my own living room, though, on a cold, January morning, I realized that I was standing in the room I'd been wishing for, with deep red walls, a two hundred-year-old sideboard, shelves full of Wedgwood vases and jugs, an art deco clock, beautiful statues, black and white photos, yellow-paged books, Olivia de Havilland's autograph on a menu from a luncheon she hosted in the sixties, nineteenth century chairs still in perfect condition, a desk and chair from the same period, dark wood, heavy yet delicate. I was surrounded by my idea of beauty, almost suddenly, and could not remember how I got there.

Then, that awareness gave way to other realizations. I spent thirteen years with a man who I loved, but always felt a hesitation with when it came to 'forever'. I still talk about how angry I am with him about his failure to propose to me, but I have to admit that there is also a bit of relief in this. Deep down, I'd always known...I think you always know. I remember wishing, always at night, for someone to talk to who understood me, who appreciated the things I did, who could teach me about the things I wanted to know. My then-boyfriend could not, would not, do that. I cried on the front doorstep, usually in the summer, listening to the trees in the night breeze, wondering if they were able to give me the answers. I couldn't imagine my life without him, but I think I always knew that my happiness would never involve him or mesh with his desires. Eventually, as the faithful reader knows, I somehow, inexplicably, found M. Nearly every day, I realize that he was always my dream man, that he encapsulates every quality I'd ever wanted in a love and friend, that he quite literally came from nowhere to make my life feel complete. I wished for him, and he came. The transition from one partner to the other was...devastating. It took me a year and a half to really finish things with my first love, always a bit of a sentimental procrastinator. It was like dying of a disease, except, at the end, I was healed, reborn in a way. I do look back every so often, but mostly it's to see how far I've come.

The day in Montreal, when M. and I were sitting on a hot bench in front of a bagel shop, eating hot, fleshy bagels from inside a steaming paper sack. To our right was a little girl with blonde braids, about four-years-old, sitting with her daddy. They were both eating ice-cream cones in silence, just watching traffic, and I remember she was wearing a little white embroidered peasant blouse, the picture of perfect innocence. M. made a comment about how if he had a child with me, he'd want her to look just like that, and I recall the my heart felt as though it had just increased to five times it's size, filling it with love, hope and positivity. Now, I have a four-year-old with long reddish-blonde braids, a little delight with blue eyes who is rarely quiet but is always silent when she is the company of ice-cream. She is everything. She is the dream alive.

The late morning in front of a messy pile of clothes in the store I managed. I started to pick through it, sorting it, folding it, and wishing for liberation from the place. I wish someone would come in and give me some money to go away from here so I could take some time to live, to find something that suits me better. I need to get out of here..., and two months later, someone did. I'd cried when it happened, my self-esteem was greatly assaulted, but a year and a half later, I know I got my wish. Most of the people I'd worked with there are also gone, each one off to pursue their own dreams, and while I still remember that final day in the office with anger and humiliation, I can't deny knowing that I'd almost conjured the entire experience. And now, hopefully, things will be better, with a possible career in something I feel a sense of pride in rather than the constant, nagging dirty itch of regret. I got the year I'd wanted, a year at home, writing, reading, loving my family and doing laundry without stress. I would have liked more money, would probably love to stay home indefinitely just to keep doing the things I love, but right now it isn't an option. I wish it were! But, it's not.

I still don't know what will happen next, have no clear vision to the future or any specific goals, but I know the ultimate wish for me is that I can live without being battered by stress and anxiety in a world which feels as though it was always waiting for me to be a part of it.

If I'm honest, I have to admit that most of my wishes have come true, though each did so with a bit of pain and loss. Something has to fall away to make room for the new, is my theory. It's that loss which sometimes makes the grantings of wishes seem wrong and unnecessarily cruel but, I believe that with time, and hindsight, you will always see the reasons behind the losses, knowing that your wishes do come with a price, but that it will always, in the end, be worth it. Somehow, amazingly, we move toward our wishes, noiselessly, unconsciously, building them without the hands of others, somehow thinking that magic plays a part.

Maybe it does.

I have other wants. I have other needs. I will keep searching for falling stars and listen to the whispers of the trees, knowing that at the very least, they serve as inspiration.