It’s a common discussion – almost as much as what you’d do with the money if you won the lottery: if you had three wishes, what would they be?

Now, the obvious seems to be money, some sort of infinite riches to live a comfortable life, or perhaps a luxurious house that you didn’t need to take a mortgage out to afford. Physical possessions are what most would consider first.

Then there’s those things that always cause controversy in the movies – love, respect, bringing people back from the dead, infinite wishes; the kind of wish that removes free will and gets everyone talking about free will and control of others.

But then, what do you wish for?

My genie stayed with me for a long time – I didn’t believe it at first, I was only 8 and my mum had gone into some antique furniture shop to find a set of drawers and I was playing in the old dresser when I was looking through all the drawers and found this old oil lamp.

It was dusty and clearly hadn’t been touched in a very long time. I opened the lid, peering inside there was a little scroll – I thought it would have a price on it but it just said ‘Take me home’. So I did. I shoved it in my bag and took it home.

I started dusting it off and as soon as I started polishing it this gold mist poured out the spout and swirling around my room into this man. Just a human man, or who appeared to be a human man.

Of course, as an 8 year old, I wished for a secret stash of sweets that my mum couldn’t see (and so the invisible, never ending sweet jar came to be) but then I became surprisingly thoughtful and didn’t want to waste my last two wishes.

My genie went back into his lamp and I could summon him whenever I decided what I wanted to use my last two wishes on. And I didn’t see him for fifteen years.

It became a complex of mine – do I wish for the things that’ll make me happy immediately or do I go for long term happiness? I wanted to wait until I knew exactly what I wanted to wish for.

Then I met him – he was at the bar with his friends when I was on a girls night, I was buying a round of drinks and he stood next to me at the bar; no chat up lines, no cheesy compliments, just genuinely started chatting to me and we haven’t stopped since.

I’ve never cared about anyone more in my life – he was everything. We both quit our jobs and went travelling for a year and we lived more in those three years we spent together than I had in the rest of my life. He asked me to marry him and I did.

Then came the complications – we couldn’t conceive. We wanted children more than anything and in that instant I knew what my second wish was.

And it was granted, we had two gorgeous little boys and everything we perfect.

But I still had one wish.

What do you do with that last wish? What if I wasted it and regretted it in years to come? What if something happened to my family and I couldn’t change it?

And that’s when I realised. The oil lamp had taught me a lesson – having wishes of unlimited grandeur isn’t a blessing, it’s a curse that weighs down on you and makes you look at the world with too much of a negative eye.

If I had learnt anything it was that I wished to be present – all those years I spent learning about myself with him and with my children and I just wanted to experience it. I don’t need to spend the rest of my life worrying about what my last wish is.

So I got my oil lamp out again and saw the man I’d known for thirty years.

“What is your final wish, my child?”

“To not have any more wishes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want the last wish. You can be free, whether it be a genie or a man, be free.”

“You think I could be human?”

He looked so hopeful, years of serving and waiting and I knew exactly how to use this last wish.

“I wish you to have the life you desire.”

And the lamp evapourated into a pile of that same gold mist I saw so long ago – my genie was shrouded in this same mist and then suddenly it was gone. He no longer wore his ornate gold jewellery or his serving clothes but jeans and an old sweatshirt; he was his own man.

“I can’t thank you enough.”

“And neither can I.”

---

Hello!

That took a very different turn than I expected it to, but whenever I write creatively on this blog it always ends up reading like soppy fanfiction without the ‘fan’ aspect.

I love doing these little pieces every now and then and it reminds me how much I love creative writing but focusing on writing my book (alongside having time for it) isn’t something I’m very good at.

For one, creative writing used to be something that my best friend from secondary school and I would do together – it was our thing, it was one of the reasons we were so close and she was there throughout the entire process of writing the first draft of my book. So going back to it is difficult because I think of her and while the memories are fond, the fact that we don’t talk any more saddens me sometimes.

But then on the flip side, in terms of getting a book published and getting agents and publishers to be interested in your writing is something I just can’t find any information on – agents have to be paid and google will only give me information on self publishing which is not something I’m interested in doing.

Writing these little posts are really therapeutic, in a way, for me and from the amount of likes and views the last couple of posts have got, I think maybe there are people that like reading them too.

So do you mind if I keep doing it?

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

 

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