#16 Desire
about wanting what I want (again)
Spring is starting to blink open its way into our lives, slowly and hesitantly. It reminds me of an old engine spluttering back to life, long-dormant and almost even forgotten, it's been months, been endless weeks, been half a year. Flowers are fighting their way through the soil, the rain, despite the wind and the clouds that come and go on a daily basis —feels like minute-by-minute, really— in my mind I call it Florida weather. I read griefbacon's post about the first good day, the promise of Spring and all those little promises you made to love people better or get to your errands or try and generally, really, start again.
A friend of mine tells me planets are moving into some houses in my chart for a very interesting ride. I tell her to repeat it to me later without meaning to because I forget about Jupiter and Saturn and Pluto, and I also think that it must be a sign —my whole life I've been looking for signs— so astrology is appealing to me. I like the romance of promise lying nowhere other than the stars, waiting for you to discover something new. I don't really pay attention to the fearmongering and the usual transits people agonize over on Instagram. What I really pay attention to lately is how people have charts and they are all different, combinations of all these planets and where they were, exactly when you were born. I like the way people have been interpreting these little clues for centuries. I like the feeling of paying a little extra attention. I like how there's some feeling of guidance; that it isn't completely up to us to discuss or think about or come up with. I like the feeling that things are moving together all the time. That we can look up and think about what it all means.
According to the astrological calendar, the new year began with the start of Spring. More accurately, somewhere within the third week of March, just as parts of the world start moving toward a new season, just as the days start inching, longer and longer, minute by minute, just as the clock turns back, and all of a sudden there is time ahead of us. Nothing but time.
These are things I like.
I like the sweet surprise of a burst of sunlight, despite my weather app telling me it'll be a cloudy afternoon. I like waking up with the Sun peeking through my blinds and hitting just enough of my face to wake me up; a gradual transition from sleep to awake. Even better: I like when I wake up before my alarm tries to. I like to spend 10 more minutes in bed and check my WhatsApp and laugh at my family group chat. I like that I'm hours ahead of my family, even though my mornings are quieter because of it —I like that it's quieter, I like that I can say hello while they sleep, and have a message to wake up to.
I like going to the same coffee place to get work done and I like it when they remember my order. I like green olives now, despite having refused to eat them most of my life. I like avocado now too. Especially the ones that grow in Venezuela. Smooth like butter. Slices the size of big half-moons.
I've also been thinking a lot about wanting what I want and how I've lost someone I love since writing that. I've thought a lot about what it means to want something without shame. Mostly my relationship with shame. And how your parents have a hand in giving you mixed messages about wanting what you want. (Mine were very kind people, but I grew up thinking I shouldn't want what I wanted because I wouldn't get it). Understanding that I'll inevitably pass on some turmoil or some kind of pain to my kid if I have one, one day.
For now I think about how I can be more confident about wanting what I want instead of living alongside the fear that I'll “never really get it” because it's honestly a bit tired, getting a bit old, a little bit predictable. Something worse than not getting what you want is the weird aftertaste of telling yourself you weren't gonna get it. It's boring. It's silly. And it doesn't make me (or anyone) want what they want less.
So now I'm liking wanting what I want and it definitely helps when I blast Want Want. I think it's gonna be my song of the year. I remember when I first heard it, I found it super off-putting, a bit aggressive, a bit unlike Maggie. Then I watched the video and I was like actually, I also want to want what I want. It's another one of those Maggie moments I've written about before. I was like, oh, I'm put off because I'm so unfamiliar with my own desire? INTERESTING.
And desire is a really powerful thing. I've always thought desire for other people (like a cute harmless crush) is made up of the same substance life is made of, something about it just makes being alive feel so good. Idk, it's melodramatic but it's also what I love, and the joy of a little crush is always to be welcomed and appreciated. There's so much that's gut-wrenching in the world.
Desire is also another key source of information: lately, it means that I want something bigger, that I want to go somewhere new, that I'm a little bored with work and that it'd be fun to get a little uncomfortable. I'm also starting to like Amsterdam which sounds absolutely fucking insane to type, and that makes me go back to the original want vs. shame for wanting discussion in my head.
What's the shame in wanting something you want and getting it? What about wanting something I think is too big for me or too difficult to get? My desire is telling me to fuck off all the time. Telling me the stories about my desire don't matter other than the fact that I desire something in itself. Desire is in my stomach and in my cheeks and in my eyes when I want something, and I try to press it down by reasoning with it and telling it that it's too aggressive or too much to ask for. I'm trying to live with the desire now and stop shaming it for wanting to give me what I want. It's interesting for someone who trained themselves to only want what they had (no more, no less).
And yet every time I've wanted something more I've also found my way back to it in one way or another. And even when I haven't gotten it I've learned that it was because something more fitting was around the corner. There's a difference between getting what you want and getting what you need, too. I guess the elusive bit of wisdom is in understanding when you're hanging on a bit too hard to something you want, and you're avoiding what you need. And then letting it go.
This started as a list of things I like and it ended with how I'm liking wanting what I want more and more. Without shame or mystery or avoidance. And I hope 80-year-old me thinks I'm moving along nicely, grinning to herself with the feeling of looseness —liberation— I'm getting every time I say what I want to myself or to a friend. I have a sneaky suspicion that speaking things into existence isn't about 300 manifestation rituals or even in the stars but more about wanting what you want* wholeheartedly, despite the consequence, or the potential sting of not receiving it.
It's made of the same little life liquid as the crushes you have when you're 26 or 18 or 15. As the Sun when it hits your closed eyelids for a minute. It's all somewhere in the way of warmth and aliveness and future and fortune-telling. Desire can be a map of what's possible if I let it.