wish.

I've always loved this word.  Loved the sound.  There's a certain playfulness to it.  I picture being on a swing and swinging as high as I can go.  Weeee!  I picture playing in the rain.  Dancing and sloshing around as the rain soaks my hair and clothes.  There's such freedom in that.  And in this word.  Wish.

As a little kid, I believed in wishes.  I believed that if you wish really, really hard for something, it will come true.  I believed that if you persistently, day in and day out, believed in its truth, it will one day take its form.

Now, as an adult, I still love the word.  And I still make wishes.  Every year, when I blow my birthday candles.  Every year, when the clock strikes twelve announcing Christmas Day.  And twice, when I threw a coin over my shoulder into the Trevi fountain. 

But now, I also believe that wishes just don't come true.  Just like that.  Maybe some would say I've become a little jaded.  But now, I just believe that in order for wishes to come true, we have to play a part in it.  It takes more than believing in the wish, we have to live the wish.  We need to ride on the swing and dance in the rain in able to see the wish transform into its concrete form.  And actually, in some way, I prefer that.  I think there's more magic in that.

*photo via