A Wish List

I submitted this earlier in the week on Medium to some sort of meme challenge (don’t ask me what a meme is), and it was selected to represent The Lighthouse publication. Kind of cool. 🙂

Back when she was little, my daughter wrote out a Christmas list, with accompanying illustrations, that I’ve displayed in a frame every year for the past 15 or 20 years.

Here it is, translated into adult spelling for easier reading:

All I want for Christmas is a puppy, a robot that does your chores, a horse, a cute teddy bear, beanie baby, Pooh collection, TV, a pool indoors, a telephone, my own room, a sky roof, 10 dollars for allowance, a Jacuzzi made out of ice cream, p.s. 2 tickets to Australia and on the way stop in Africa, and the world should be made out of candy, a microphone, camera, $2000, fish.

Some may view the list as a bit materialistic. So why do I love it so much?

To me it conveys unbridled joy, wild imagination, disregard for limitations, and being brave enough to ask for what you want even though you know it won’t come true and you may be judged for asking.

All qualities I desperately lack as an adult and probably also lacked as a child.

In an effort to model myself after my seven-year-old daughter, here is my wish list for 2016 — without the illustrations:

• a healthy old dog for the kids’ sake (and maybe mine too, if I admit it)
• a new MacBook, iPhone, and iPad
• to become a famous author with a bestseller of a debut novel
• $2000 allowance
• a couple of college acceptance letters for my youngest daughter
• a face that matches the one in my mind and not the one in the mirror
• a house (maybe two) on the ocean
• my own room (just because it slightly increases the chance of the next item happening)
• a good night’s sleep
• Hillary in the Oval Office, or at least no one from this batch of Republicans
• the kids returning home (for a visit) to enjoy the pool and the Jacuzzi
• freedom from the constant fear of losing the people and things I am lucky enough to have at any moment to a natural disaster, a man-made disaster, an accident, cancer, or some other illness
• 5 tickets (okay, maybe 8 so the boyfriends can come) to Europe and on the way stop in Hawaii
• a world full of people with open hearts and open minds, or at least among my Facebook friends
• an iWatch
• an SLR camera
• the ability to demonstrate unbridled joy, wild imagination, and disregard for limitations
• Being brave enough to ask for what I want and to make it happen
• To care a little less about the spelling than I do about the words (in everything). And maybe throw in a picture or two.