Wishes

When I’m bad I wish I was better.

When I’m good I wish it would last.

When I’m really good I wish it wouldn’t go to my head.

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I wish I’d known then what I know now…but then…I don’t know who I’d be now if I’d traveled straight ‘n narrow all Point A to Point B.  Changing a flat in the wilderness sometimes marks a boundary on your life map, and gives people something interesting to whisper about at your funeral.

I wish peace was as easy to feel as it is to spell.

I wish love was as common as how often I hear the word said.

If I could make amends to people I’ve offended, let me do it one by one, my only wish…to be spared knowing the actual quantity, which might overwhelm me, both in regret, and in a measurement of grace of what I’ve personally cost the Bethlehem Child.

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There were times I wish I could finish a sentence. There are times when I wish I’d never started one.

I wish I knew why God has it figured out this way. We all aspire to common sense, but we fall on our humanity when we see bad things happening to good people.

I wish innocence lasted longer.

I wish I knew how many dollars I’d have if I’d get a dollar for every time I ever wished.

Wish is a form of faith, that it could be, but wishes all stand upon the foundation labeled Hope.

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I know that good people wish for good. I wonder, do evil people wish for evil? Call me country, but I think we have them outnumbered.

I’ve been at this life thing a while. I wish I knew God better. I assume He agrees.

I wish I’d been smarter when young. Come to think of it, I wish I was smarter now.

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I wish I’d said. I wish I’d not said.

I wish I’d not made a mess. I wish I’d cleaned things up.

I wish I’d given the 20th chance to my imperfect peers, but I was at the end of my rope, and didn’t know that God had given me the 200,000th chance, and a lifetime supply of rope..

I wish I’d been content earlier. That I’m stuck with being me isn’t being stuck at all.

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I wish I’d be content with my bucket list. It’s a rusty bucket, and not large, but it holds things. And it fits me.

I wish I’d studied Spanish. I know all the slang and cusswords, but wouldn’t know how to order rice and beans at a restaurant.

I wish I’d learned French. Not any French, not just Louisiana French, but Allen Parish French, the language of my culture.

I wish I’d heeded good advice. Maybe I’m not unusual, and maybe it’s not the human way, to just hear a standard, and then just follow it. Bless my heart, my elders weren’t all right, but they were mostly right, and I, I was me.

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I wish I’d done more.

I wish I’d done less.

I wish my big talk was backed up by big walk.

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Curiously, all my wishing only leads me to being thankful.

I am thankful that despite, and aside from, and not counting, and cutting slack, and grading on the curve, I was ever granted a life with the ability to wish, that I remain alive to wish, and that I have the reasonable good sense to wish that, of what is left, it gives off a favorable flame, and amounts to some good.

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This edition of Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, which wishes you peace, and the pretend blank slate of a New Year.

Other Bedtime Stories can be found on the Eighty-one Facebook page.  Uncle P can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com.