what I really, really want.
It comes over me in waves, this wanting. Most of the time I try not to think about it. Most of the time I live by the credo “no regrets” – I like where I am in my life, I have my children, my house, my partner, we have enough things (more than enough things), we are comfortable. How could I change any decisions, regret any action that could change today? So, mostly I don’t.
But there is a moment I would change. A want that is so powerful that just thinking about this writing prompt last night, sat on the bathroom floor with the baby, I dissolved into tears.
I want my sister back.
I want the phonecall, that fateful night, to play out differently. I want the mad dash to the hospital to end with us arriving in time to be there as she came out of danger, instead of being there too late to say goodbye.
I want to be able to tell her to her face that what she did was stupid, rather than hating myself for feeling that way. I want to be there to take her home from hospital, instead of having to visit her body in a funeral home. I want to watch Wimbledon on her large TV while the family gathers to rip the bath out so that she can’t take that risk again, instead of watching Wimbledon in shock gathered together, not quite sure what to say.
I want to be able to change my phone instead of being terrified of losing it because it has the last text on it that I ever received from her. Oh, and when I received that text, I want to have said, oh no, you broke your ankle? We’ll come round and see you, instead of saying we’re busy the next two weekends, we’ll come see you after. Because there wasn’t an after.
I want to have given up my job and changed my life because a near miss told me to seize the day, instead of a deeply felt loss. I want Carol King’s “Crying in the rain” to mean no more than any other lovely song, instead of being my anthem of survival for that summer.
I want my baby daughter to have been named after her to celebrate our revitalised friendship, instead of to remember her forever.
But I don’t want the pain to stop. Because that would mean that I had started to forget, or somehow stopped loving and missing her so very much.
Not quite sure that inspired is the word for this post. But it was brought on by prompt 5. When was the last time you really, really wanted something from the writing workshop at Sleep is for the Weak. 
Can’t just at this moment lay my hands on the image code (so difficult to see through the tears 🙁 ) so I’ll be back to edit later. ETA Been and done it.
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