On happiness, wishes, and years passing by

(For some weird reasons, the song Fast Car by Tracy Chapman made me weep for a minute after my hundredth time of listening to it and joyfully inspired me to write again.)

Five years from now, I want to see myself pursuing graduate studies not for the benefit of my bank account or my rank as an educator in an institution, but for the sheer enrichment of my mind and soul. I want to be pursuing something that will be with me till I grow older, to have something to be busy thinking about not just doing about. I want to be passionate about something completely, entirely. If that would be teaching literature, I would be incandescently happy.

Ten years from now, I want to live in a very simple house, preferably near a body of water, may it be a lake, a pond, with lush greens around it, and beautiful flowers too. I will do the gardening, though I’m not sure if I have the green thumb to go about it. My house will be very quaint but elegant. It will have a breakfast nook and a window spot where I can stay all day or all night if I wish, reading my favorite book of the moment. I want to have a lot of rugs and curtains for added coziness and some romantic lighting. It will be my retreat after a busy day at work. I don’t want to own a car. I don’t see the need for it if public transportation is already at arm’s length. I want to have a dog to accompany me on my lonely nights. I want to stargaze while lazed in a hammock just outside my house, with blankets to keep me warm.

Years from now, I would love to travel in places I’ve never been before, hopefully, with the company of someone special, a friend, a boyfriend, a husband? I would go packing and just take a flight somewhere if my bank account would allow it. I would go to beaches and just frolic or do yoga and meditation on mountain tops or visit a museum and be breathless with things I can barely believe unfolded sometime in history. I would love to experience things first-hand, taste food, gastronomically entice my wits and satisfy my cravings. I would pine for the sensory pleasure of lying in the grass with the sun shining on my closed eyes. I would love that. I know I would.

Years from now, I want to write something that will change my life. I would want to do something or produce something unique in my transitory existence. I want to leave something invaluable to me before I die. If the gods will grant it, I would want others to take my writing invaluable too. But that doesn’t really concern me as of now. I just want to be doing the vocation that has no name. The vocation that doesn’t really pay the rent. The vocation that keeps me sane since the time I knew how to do it. I know I’m not that of a good writer, but I write with my heart and that is all my own.

Years from now, I will have a simple life. A life that would allow me to take long walks at night. To stargaze. To read a novel. Collect quotations. To listen to Kath Bloom or Eva Cassidy while doing the cleaning. To see my friends when they need me. I would love to know how to play the guitar by that time and sing the lyric poems I have penned when I’m inspired.  To feel the breeze on the nape of my neck. To lose myself in conversation with a cherished friend. To snuggle under the covers with a lover. I want to have a family, maybe? Or someone to love – or any of that platonic sorts. I would love us to do things together, of course, and grow old together, like that in a song by The Weepies. He’ll be my home. Oh, I would love that, every girl would love that.

But right now, these are all just my wild imaginings. My romantic notions. My desperate designs. It will remain this way for a long while but I believe we become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day. I am a collection of what I consistently think and feel and do and dream. And I sincerely and blindly believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening of worst lots. Years from now, someday soon.