I’ve been trying to do that whole “mantra” thing lately; the one that everyone tells you to do. You know—put out to the Universe what you want, and eventually you’ll get it? That thing.
I’ve attempted various methods—trying to make it feel less futile—but I think the Universe is on to me. It knows that I’m only putting forth a halfhearted effort because people tell me it’ll work. It knows that I don’t necessarily believe in what I’m doing but am simply desperate and depressed enough to try. Which, I suppose, will likely be the demise of my wishes.
Coming up with what to ask for was hard enough.
I’ve gotten “I’d really like a home with enough space for my family, and a dog (I figure, why not ask big?) with a yard to hang out in that is big enough for a nice, lush garden” down to: Home.
I managed to whittle “I’d like enough money to afford that house, and maybe a car that doesn’t need a quart of oil every week, and enough food for groceries so I don’t have to go to the food bank once a month, and to be able to just relax a bit” to: Money.
“I’d like to feel good and content and not have pointless anger or to waste time and emotional energy on bullshit I have no control over” has become: Happiness.
Because I don’t think about my body very much and certainly don’t take the care with it that I should, I thought I should include a wish for it as well. “I’d like to be healthy and for my kids to be healthy. No crazy illnesses or injuries; just average run-of-the-mill sniffles and occasional headaches are okay, but nothing to knock us down” was summed up as: Health.
The last wish was the hardest for me. I’m not sure if this was because I believed I wouldn’t find anything better than what I’d recently lost and so shouldn’t bother trying. Or maybe I felt like I simply couldn’t get it right, kept failing, and so have settled on the fact that maybe it just isn’t meant for me. Mainly I didn’t feel like asking.
“I’d like to find someone who will love me as much as I love them. Who isn’t afraid to go there with me. Who will take everything that I come with and will embrace it.” As weirdly humiliated as it made me to ask for this, I felt that I had to. And so I put it simply: Love.
As if there is anything simple about Love.
Figuring out in what order to put my reluctant requests was more painstaking than I anticipated. Some affect the others—I’ll need Money so I can get the Home, but asking for Money before pretty much anything else is simply not my style (thanks Midwestern shame-filled upbringing!).
Should Love come before Happiness? No, I need to feel Happy before I can really find Love, so that one will be awhile.
I take the Health thing for granted, so maybe it should be first? I don’t want to get cocky and put it further down the line and then end up losing an arm or contracting the plague.
Does the order even matter? Is the fact that I’m asking in the first place enough? Will the Universe just take note of what I want and dole a little of whatever it has a surplus of at any given moment?
Or will it wait until I stop being so skeptical and really, truly believe in what I’m reluctantly mumbling from time to time? Is the Universe waiting for me to shout it from the rooftops?
In the end I put them in alphabetical order. Happiness, Health, Home, Love, Money. I still trip up when trying to mutter them while I’m driving, or falling asleep, or waking up, or in breaks between paragraphs.
I almost always forget one and have to pause for a moment while I try to bring it back; usually I forget the last two. Which makes me question whether I even need those things in my life. Love, Money…meh.
I have no idea what I’m doing—asking for help is not something that comes naturally to me and certainly never comes without guilt. But for now, I’ll keep grumbling my request, like a neglected, grumpy old man in a nursing home, waiting hours and then finally asking for his diaper to be changed. Ashamed at having to ask, but relieved at having done so.
I’ll ask for it: Happiness, Health, Home, Love, Money
