Jiminy Cricket Was a Wise Old Soul: Longing for {Lost Childhood Wishes}

When I was 6 years old, I wished and wished and wished for Santa to bring me my first home — a Barbie Dream House. Poor Barbie had a pink Corvette, but nowhere to park it, and I just wanted to help her achieve the American Dream of owning her first home. I did everything in my power to be the perfect little angel (for the most part): I ate all my meals, listened to Mom and Dad, and even cut back on torturing my sister.

When I walked downstairs Christmas morning to that Barbie Dream House in front of our fireplace, the world stopped. The pile of wrapped presents became part of the background, and I ran to get Barbie for a proper tour of her new home. This would be the home in which she would make wonderful memories with her boyfriend Ken, kid sister Skipper, her bandmates from Barbie and the Rockers, and eventually her perfectly adorable children. It was everything I dreamed of for both Barbie and me.

Thirty years later, left with a money pit I purchased in the height of the housing boom, I wished and wished and wished for someone to approve my renters for a mortgage so they could take the damn thing off my hands at a loss.

My, how things have changed.

When we were young, we wished with an innocence that gave us hope and the passion to chase our dreams. The wish to make the front line in ballet class, to be lead dancer in a play someday, to get into my first choice college, to meet a soulmate and live happily ever after.

And you know what? Those are the kind of wishes that keep our hearts full and life exciting.

From a very early age, we are driven to succeed, to prove our worth to the world, to be a good sport, to put our best foot forward. We’re encouraged to embrace people and things that are different and learn from new experiences. We’re told to take that chance and never look back. We are simply taught to strive to be our very best in every aspect of our lives.

What I’ve come to realize is that we don’t wish with that innocence nearly enough in our adult lives. Instead, we wish we had taken that chance at a different career, wish we’d traveled more when we were young, we even wish to win the Powerball on a regular basis.

When did wishes turn into regrets and easy ways out? Where did our desire to be better people go?

Right now, we live in a world with so many challenges, many being highlighted by the current election. We’re seeing racial discrimination, gun violence, LGBTQ rights being taken away, women’s rights being threatened with major setbacks, and lone wolf terrorism right here on the homefront. And while the two major party candidates debate who is better to be our fearless leader to face and fix these problems, Americans as a whole have lost faith altogether. Where do we look for hope now? Who is going to make this world better for our children and their children?

I don’t have all the answers, but I think we’d all benefit from wishing upon a star more often. So to you I say, be the best person YOU can be, think happy thoughts, channel your inner Cinderella, and start wishing like the 6 year old you who still holds the belief that wishes really do come true. Because, after all, a dream is a wish your heart makes, when you’re fast asleep.

Grasshopper