What do you want?

I honestly don't know.

I have no idea what I want to eat for breakfast let alone what I want to do with my life.

So if I had to pick?  If I absolutely had to pick something because the rest of my life depended on it?  Would I be able to answer?  Would I be able to come up with something?  Let's see.

I want to be happy.  This has to be the broadest thing that I could ever think of, but there it is.  My ultimate goal in life is to find happiness and retain it.  It'd also be really nice if the people around me could also be happy.  I'm concerned about the people around me for all the obvious reasons in addition to the fact that I love them a lot.

I want to be able to have fun and not have to hide it.  I'm convinced that people get to a certain age and then they're not allowed to admit that they're having fun.  I like to think that they're not allowed to admit it because the alternative is that they're just not having fun at all, which is way too depressing to think about.  If anyone can tell me what age you have to be to be ashamed of admitting when you're having fun, I would really like to know because I'm concerned that I'm reaching that age, and in order to be taken seriously in "the real world," I might just have to renounce my ability to show when I'm having a good time.

I want adventures but I want safety.  Sometimes I'm daring, but more often than not, I play it safe.  I don't take risks.  I don't walk the edge.  I walk squarely in the middle and I get out of people's way when they come running towards me.  The adventures I have are under strictly controlled circumstances because I don't do spontaneity.  But at the same time, I want that.  So I'm conflicted there.  I want to explore, but I want to have the luxury of keeping a map in my pocket so I can consult it if I get lost.  I want to learn new things about where I'm at, but I want to have some place to call home so I can go back when I'm lonely.

I want to read.  For fun.  All the time.  I want to read everything I can get my hands on, even the dry and boring books because then I'll have something to complain about.  I want to read poetry out loud on street corners and draw the stares of tourists but it wouldn't matter.  Mostly because I would be having fun.  (See above.)

I want to write awful fragments of stories and random lines of poetry that never make sense together.  I want to write them all down, shuffle them up and hide them away in my writing box.  I want to keep them secret.  (Though I realize writing about them here kind of negates that secret bit.  Oh well.)

I want to fall in love.  I want to be able to open up to someone and trust them not to run away, but if they do, I want a broken heart.  I would want to feel the loss.

I want to feel.  I want to help people.  I want to do something worthwhile.  I want to make an impression.  I want to make my family proud.  I want to get so mad that I yell in public places.  I want to make a scene.  I want to walk until I'm completely exhausted.  I want to re-read my favorite books eight billion times.  I want to read Shakespeare aloud.  Somewhere.  I want to go everywhere and nowhere.

I want to live.

"With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future.  I live now."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson