The most practical among us make wishes. Did you know that? We just back them up with action.

With grit. With determination. We apply our resourcefulness to the problem, and we are not easily defeated.

Our prayers are only precursors to our movement. Watch us flow toward what we want. Our power is in our steady doing. Going and flowing, we round out the rough edges, cut paths where everyone told us a path was impossible.

We don’t believe in your impossible.

But I didn’t wish for the prince on his white horse or the white knight with his shield. I imagined, vaguely, that one day he might show up, but I would already have bought my own castle and furnished it to my heart’s content. I would have created my own kingdom and danced in every grand ballroom.

I didn’t wish for a prince but for courage. For a spine. To grow brave enough to speak the words I always held close to my chest.

I didn’t wish for love but for a voice. To be louder than the voices determined to drown me out. To speak my truth and nothing but my truth for all the days of my life.

I didn’t wish for a plus-one happily-ever-after story but for a library filled with books and a dinner table filled with friends, and if love came into the picture, I assumed it would happen sometime later.

After I found my spine.

And my voice.

When I least expected it.

And wasn’t looking for it.

But found it anyway.

I would feel blessed and thankful, but it wouldn’t be because I wasted wishes on it. Or sent prayers skyward in hopes of altering my name. It wasn’t because I had embarked on an exhaustive journey or managed a frightful quest.

No, I didn’t waste my wishes on that.

Maybe because part of me wondered if I was built for all that.

But maybe that part was informed by the incorrect assumption that I wasn’t worthy. That I would always be alone. That somehow my self-imposed solitude could be the key to my survival.

If I had to be alone, I would make myself a force to be reckoned with.

With my own castle and furnishings and kingdom.

Where I could stand tall.

And dance in every ballroom.

And speak to anyone.

Because if I couldn’t have what other people had, I would be a fierce force. A queen who ruled her own domain and cared little for anything outside of it. Who had befriended solitude and invented worlds to disappear into at will.

I didn’t wish for love. Or to be rescued.

I never really needed saving.

Saving from what? Happiness? A life built on little more than love and grit?

But love has its own magic. The pure force of two strong leaders combined? Wouldn’t that be an impressive thing?

I wouldn’t wish for it, but I can wonder.

Don’t think there aren’t hearth fires burning in my eyes. Don’t think I couldn’t make a home so strong you might be loathed to leave it. Don’t think that the power of two could rival the power of one such as I — if they so chose.

Practical people make wishes. We really do. But we don’t waste them on the impossible.

Of course, we don’t believe in the impossible.

And what we wish for, we work for.

What we find without wishing? We work for that, too. We polish up our lives until they shine and take pride in what we created.

Kings and queens of our own lives whether or not we’re joined by another — or choose to lead alone. We endure. We make wishes.

And we make those wishes count.

Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash

For more self-study, The Urban Howl recommends Right On Walton (Heart of Madison Series) by Crystal Jackson.