I recall as a child lying in bed at night and looking out the open window at a wishing star and saying to myself “Star Light Star bright, The first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, Have the wish I wish tonight. I wish to be a girl. I promise to be good.”
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I would look around the room which I shared with my three brothers to make sure they were asleep before I slowly inched my way to the side of my bed and slid slowly to the floor. Under my bed I kept a little wooden box that used to contain an old radio. I would reach into the box and from underneath a pile of comic books I would pull out a girl’s nightgown. I donned the nightgown and crept back into my bed. Then I would fall asleep. This was my nightly ritual.
In the morning I would be disappointed to find that my wish did not come true but that never stopped me from trying again the next night. I figured that maybe the wishing star was busy granting some other child their wish. I just had to be faithful and continue to wish upon it and sooner or later the star would get around answering mine.
In a child’s mind there is no such thing as an impossible wish. In the psyche of the very young everything is possible. That is what makes childhood so wonderful, the propensity to hope and dream for things that might not make rational sense.
As children grow to adulthood they stop looking up at the wishing stars. They assume that because their wish was not granted in a timely fashion that the answer was probably “NO.” That can be no further from the truth. The wishing stars are still there even if we choose not to acknowledge them.
A wish once wished so long ago is still a wish today.
It’s a wish in progress.
Never stop wishing upon your star.