Shouldn’t I Have This? ………… Shouldn’t I Have All Of This?
I want to live in a little house with a big porch on the seashore.
I want to live in an apartment in New York City with a geranium on the fire escape.
I want crisp white sheets and gingham curtains.
I want gilded mirrors and french porcelain.
I want rack of lamb with frilly paper panties on the bones.
I want a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich with a side of potato chips.
I want to appear before sold-out crowds who laugh and applaud.
I want to go for weeks without seeing another human being.
I want to write poetry that makes people cry.
I want to play video games.
I want to raise organic veggies and have chickens in the yard.
I want pizza delivery.
I want it to be warm and sunny all year.
I want to be snowed-in for a week.
I want an executive position with board meetings and stock options.
I want to retire and putter around the house in my pajamas.
I want rock-and-roll that shakes the pictures off my walls.
I want a Vivaldi adagio playing softly in the next room.
I want to climb mountains and run the rapids.
I want to take the convertible to a bed-and-breakfast.
I want to run for office and change the world.
I want to never read a newspaper again.
I want to read People magazine.
I want to read War and Peace.
I want to visit Spain and Tahiti and the Grand Canyon.
I want to throw away my suitcases for good.
I want to wear designer clothes and emerald earrings.
I want to live in sweatshirts and raggedy jeans.
I want to wear miniskirts and bikinis and have blond hair and be young forever.
I want to grow old gracefully, with delicate white hair and lovely laugh lines and eyes of wisdom.
Vanessa Redgrave, ageless at 76.
- Posted in: Aging ♦ Beauty ♦ Humor ♦ Style ♦ Work
- Tagged: Aging, Antonio Vivaldi, choices, conflicting desires, conflicting goals, desire, Humor, middle-aged, Peanut butter, Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Travel, Vanessa Redgrave
notquiteold 
You are an amazing writer! In all these short one liners resides a total you in a series of contradictions we all find within ourselves. Like I said, “You are an amazing writer.”
LikeLike
Thank you so much. Among my most sincere “wants” is to write something that moves people. So thank you.
LikeLike
I love her. Brilliant actress. Lovely woman.
I want those things, too. That’s why I bought a lottery ticket.
LikeLike
I want to win the lottery. I want to stop throwing my money away.
LikeLike
beautifully written
LikeLike
Thank you.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on On the Homefront and commented:
love the juxtaposition of the wants…………
LikeLike
Thanks for sending my post to your world.
LikeLike
loved it
LikeLike
So, the great art of living would be to somehow balance all those wants and needs… some of them might even be satisfied if only dreamed about.
LikeLike
Or in stories. We can write ourselves alternative lives.
LikeLike
oh yes, to give words to those dream worlds amkes them even more satisfying- not everything has to be experienced in realiter. Nice!
LikeLike
I wish all women would be happy to age as gracefully and that the world would allow them to be confident to do so.
Beautiful, thank you.
LikeLike
I truly want to stop fearing old age. I hope I can.
LikeLike
I’m finding that I’m fascinated looking at the wrinkly skin on my arms — it’s sort of like some sort of badge — I know it’s me but it looks like someone else — and I don’t know who that someone else is —
LikeLike
It’s that weird hang-y-down thing under my neck that worries me.
LikeLike
And..Passionate kisses. Mary Chapin Carpenter
LikeLike
One of my all-time favorites. I want someone to sing it at my funeral.
LikeLike
Loved this post. This aging thing can be scary … I’d love to do it gracefully!
LikeLike
I don’t know whether to do it gracefully or fight it all the way.
LikeLike
I love the contradictions and why not? A woman can change her mind anytime she wants. Right? And about the aging…no point in worrying about it as it’s going to happen whether you worry or not.
I always enjoy reading your posts, Nancy. Wonderfully written.
LikeLike
Thanks, Dor.
LikeLike
She does set the bar pretty high. I was commenting on how elegant she is just the other day.
You do deserve all of the above.
Me too.
LikeLike
Yes, you too. All the above and more.
LikeLike
I love this. And yes–by all means—you should have all of this and more. Have a great day!
LikeLike
Thanks…If only I could decide what it is I want… or perhaps if I could live parallel lives….
LikeLike
How great to see someone who can articulate the contradictions we all have. You always sound real but this makes you sound even more real (or just like me). PS don’t even think about growing old gracefully. Growing old disgracefully is the only way to go…
LikeLike
Disgracefully sounds like a good idea.
LikeLike
Your words reflect my thoughts some days – I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up! As I am growing older (am I already old?) I see less time left so I want to do it all but there are choices. As a crone I admire women who grow old gracefully and Redgrave is one. Excellent post!
LikeLike
Everything sounds so good to me. I could never make up my mind. Even back in college, when someone asked my parents what I was majoring in, they answered, “Transferring.”
LikeLike
So glad to have found your blog. I’m 62, my husband’s 75 and we’re both about to complete our the manuscripts for our first novels. We’re working hard, playing hard, dreaming new dreams all the time. Good stuff.
LikeLike
I have a manuscript too! It is waiting patiently for me to start a second draft. How I want to do that… but I want to just fool around with little posts on my blog, too.
LikeLike
I so understand. The blog is a love affair I can’t quite leave.
LikeLike
It’s the instant gratification for me. Novel writing is a lonely, private business, and you never really know how you are doing. You write a blog post, and instantly someone gives you feedback. As you say, it’s a love affair.
LikeLike
That’s it. Exactly.My current blog is new, but I wrote Switched at Birth (blog, not TV show, sadly) for a decade; have just archived it, but missed it so much, just had to make a new one . . .Oh — almost forgot — I’ve started a community page on Facebook called (ta da) Old Writers at Work, Not sure it’s ready for prime time yet, but the idea is to be a supportive space for writers +50.
LikeLike
I’ll check out your FB page… us old writers have to stick together.
LikeLike
Sure am glad “old” ain’t what it used to be! 🙂
Re the FB page, all suggestions welcome. I’m still trying to figure out the FB nomenclature. & whether this should be a community page or a group.
Time for ice cream and reading. Take care.
LikeLike
As usual, beautifully written.
LikeLike
Thanks, Monica. It seems now that I am not alone in conflicting desires.
LikeLike
I have a deep-seated belief that we all begged Heaven not to let us come to Earth, and now we’re begging Earth not to let us leave. There’s a contradiction for you. Great post, as usual.
LikeLike
That’s an interesting concept. I hope we get to come back too, so we can try something new.
LikeLike
Wonderful….
LikeLike
Thanks.
LikeLike
Love your list! Good to know I’m not the only one who likes extremes and can’t quite make up my mind! Funny, fun, and reassuring all at once! Hope you get all your wishes fulfilled! ~ Sheila
LikeLike
I have always been interested in too many things. I envy the person who has an obsession. How nice to be able to concentrate on just one thing!
LikeLike
I want every single one of those things for you. Thank you for sharing them.
LikeLike
I forgot ballroom dance lessons. I want that too.
LikeLike
Nancy – you outdid yourself here. I want…we want – it’s the ying/yang…the push/pull…all that life is made of. So true!!!
LikeLike
Too many choices. That’s the joy and anguish of life.
LikeLike
Oh… love this. Often I think how many lives I would need in order to experience all the things I want to do, to develop all the facets of my own personality, to know better the world and myself. I can see I am not alone.
LikeLike
That’s I am hoping that reincarnation is real.
LikeLike
me too!
LikeLike
Of course you too.
LikeLike
I want to finally decide what it is that I want – and stick with it!
LikeLike
If only we could decide what to decide!
LikeLike
Hey, these can be done sequentially! Although the body has aged over the years, part of me will always be that 4 year girl eating a sun warmed strawberry on my grandparents’ back steps. .
LikeLike
And why not!
Here’s part of my plans
I want the silver hair tied in a ponytail while climbing Colorado mountains
And in the afternoon, a hot tub on a deck as the sun sets over the mountains and then walk to town for a lovely dinner that I don’t have to clean up after with coffee on a deck beside the river.
(and already I’ve told my daughter to strap me on a horse to get me up the mountain – and a Segway will do for afternoons.)
LikeLike
And no bugs – not on the mountain, not near the river, not on the deck, not by the hot tub. Perfect.
LikeLike
Lovely! I want all those things for you.
LikeLike
I am hoping for multiple lives.
LikeLike
So far, the only things I could check off are the pizza delivery and the peanut butter and jelly with chips. How am I doing?
P.S. I’ll save the emerald earrings and bikini and mini-skirt for the day before I die.
LikeLike
I could wear them to your funeral, if you’d prefer.
LikeLike
I’d die a happy man.
LikeLike
You should have this. All of this. And I should, too! Love this post.
P.S.
Our wish lists have about a 98% overlap.
LikeLike
Maybe we’d get it done if you take half and I take half.
LikeLike
Let’s put “I want an executive position with board meetings and stock options” on your list though. I want to wear fuzzy clothes all morning and write a novel that makes people laugh and cry and think about it for weeks. Okay? LOL
LikeLike
On second thought, I will take the stock options but not the board meetings.
LikeLike
Wise choice. You can clip coupons in your fuzzy clothes!
LikeLike
Don’t we all!
LikeLike