I WANT

After coming across yesterday’s posted poem in The Oprah Magazine, I kept on reading and devoured a great article entitled “Just Say What You Want, Dammit!” by Ellen Tien. I dog-eared the page because her words resonated so deeply with me; they put practical language around even my last two posts – not to mention the endless words, paragraphs, novellas, and epic works that spin untamed in my brain – in regards to the reality of what I want.

I know that I want, but I can feel the part of me that begins to critique such; the part of me that says I don’t really deserve to want what I want – and that I can’t actually expect to get what I want – or that somehow my wants are all-consuming; that I’m too ravenous, too hungry. Why am I so quick to sublimate my wants, to tone them down, to keep them manageable, safe, and not-so-big-that-I’ll-be-disappointed? I have a ton of ideas about that (yes, endless words, paragraphs, novellas, and epic works) – at least as they apply to me – but for now, will defer to the wit and wisdom (and wanting) of another writer:

…Why can’t she say what she wants? She’s afraid that people will label her needy, bitchy, clingy, whiny. In other words, wanty. Wanty (known in Italy as volere, on New York’s shrink-saturated Upper West Side as the id) is the hobgoblin who scrambles the signals so that wanting becomes a bad thing instead of a way to move forward. His cohorts are guilt and denial; his ace up the sleeve is fear or rejection.

What if I look stupid?
What if the answer is no?
What if, what if? So goes Wanty’s refrain.

Wanty should not be confused with pure Want. Pure Want is the essence of living. It’s the human condition, the slender quill that pricks the sectors of the soul, stimulating yearning or envy, desire or desperation. Nor should Wanty be mistaken for his cousin, Wishy, who pines for a more unattainable horizon and subsists on fountains glutted with coins, birthday candles, and the sternum bones of poultry…

Wanty looks daggers at Wish and Want and shames them into silence. He flicks open the refrigerator door and slams it shut, thumbs through your credit card statements reproachfully, reaches out and shakes up your mind, juddering friendly old desires into unrecognizable enemies.

Do we even allow ourselves to know what we want?

So, as I think about what I want will I allow myself to truly want those things? Will I lean into pure Want and trust that it’s true, worthwhile, and worth pursuing? Will I let myself say out loud and then actually move toward what I want? Do I really know what I want?

I do.

Tien nears the end of her article with these words:

In any event, do try. Keep trying. Freedom to want is power steering, your trump card. It’s what enables us to scan new constellations, fall in love or resolve to leave, find our way home. What you want isn’t merely what you get. It’s where you’ll be. It’s who you’ll be.

Where will I be? Who will I be? How different might my answers be to those questions if I let them be shaped, molded, and even controlled by pure Want?

I WANT to find out!

P.S. Even as I write these words, I can hear the other texts and voices within that tell me it’s not all about me and my wants, that there are other things and people that matter, that maybe God needs to be in the mix of all this so that I don’t get too carried away with myself, my needs, what I want.

Really? Those words are barely typed and they already feel so achingly deadening. Really? Already I’m hearing the voice that says I should tone myself down, be/ask/want less? Aaaaugh!

I don’t have all the answers in this regard, but I just can’t believe that God wants that for me, an achingly deadening voice, a toned-down, less-than me – or you. Rather, I believe that God wants more for us than we could ever even begin to imagine for ourselves. If that’s even remotely true, then we have full permission to want, freedom to want, in fact, blessing and commission to want. Maybe the problem isn’t that we want too much. Maybe it’s that we want to little.

Let’s want more – and see what manifestations of God’s faithfulness and love might be out there if we had eyes to see, imaginations to hope, and hearts to risk. Isn’t that what we really want? I do.

I WANT.

Be Sociable, Share!