Wanting What Someone
Else Has
Early
yesterday morning I had to take a trip to the all-night grocery store when I
discovered that someone had found my stash of index cards and had used them for
their art project (the name of my daughter is being withheld to protect her
lack of innocence.) While there I met
three women who for a brief moment made me wish for a life that was not my own.
I went the
appropriate section of the store, found the note cards and then located about
10 other items that I had not gone there for. I noticed that the young woman
who worked at the in-store Starbucks was already having a giant sized blended
coffee drink, so I decided to have a green tea. I asked how she had been and
she told me that she was within one class of completing her degree to become a
nurse. She beamed with pride and I told her that I was so happy for her.
From
previous conversations I knew she was a young mother and so I was doubly proud.
I imagined her walking across the stage
at her graduation and then I stepped into my thoughts too deep and for a split
second, I wished myself back to my own graduation, only this time I had all the
wisdom I now possess.
I caught myself dreaming on someone
else’s youth and called myself back to the present. As I shook my head to make things
clearer, a beautiful woman dressed for church came in for her morning coffee.
Her hair was cut close to her head and I wondered what the style would look
like on me. The day before I’d suffered a migraine that made me want to cut my
off own hair. I told the woman that she was beautiful and as if she could read
my thoughts, she told me that I should do it too. I spent another split-second
in someone else’s life, shook my head again and smiled and said “Not yet.”
As I walked
back to my car, another beautiful and this time tall woman stepped out of her
car and greeted me. She asked how my morning was going and I told her it was
fine but that it would be better if I was as tall as she was. She stopped
suddenly and said, “Oh Honey, when I was young like you, I wished to be your
height with all that hair you have.”
I laughed
out loud and told her what my mother used to say, “If wishes were horses,
everybody would ride.” She laughed a throaty laugh and went on into the store
and I drove home with my note cards and the stuff I didn’t know I needed until
I saw it on the shelves.
Now, you
already know where I’m going. Sometimes when we see something on or in someone
else, we begin to feel “less than” about what we have and
who we are.
“You are unique, in all
the world there is no one like you, in all the world there is no one who can do
what you can do.”
Be YOU
Bertice Berry, PhD.
No comments:
Post a Comment