Professional of Wanting

Prompt: Hey! This is Chanice Withers. Tell me….what is something you want on today? How are you going to get it?

Something I want today….Oh, man! In a world where I am pushed to want all the time because the feeling of want drives the economic underpinnings of our society is one I am quite familiar with. I would argue, I am a professional of wanting, of the act or wanting, the skill of lusting after that which I do not have.

There are so many things my heart wants for the world, for others in my life.

I want each human to try and do better when it is so easy to do worse.

I want people to have the freedom to be who they want to be, act how they want to act without fear of judgement and persecution.

Ultimately what I want….what I crave in this moment in the most selfish, meaningless, indulgent way possible is for my stomach to not hurt.

Taking that prompt more seriously, and reflecting Inward…

There are many things I want for me. For myself. Things to benefit and appease me. This is an act I am not very familiar with and hardly ever execute on. The act of selfishness. Something that I perceive to be as foreign to me as a Chick-fil-A sandwich is to mantis shrimp.

In a trivial, lustful way, in this very moment I want someone I am attracted to, to burst in the door during my shift and make out with me in the back.

I want the clarity and foresight to know that the move I am making to Massachusetts is the correct choice for myself and not another ploy to put my life on pause and escape the hunt for a partner or next home, or one of the myriad of things society tells me I “should” want at this point in my life.

I want to be shed of the burden of all my earthly possessions, living for travel, and the act of exploring this world in the one chance I have to do so (assuming reincarnation is not real, and or I will not get a redo when I die).

I want all of the knowledge and complete understanding of digital marketing or paid media to be beamed by Scotty into my head.

I want to have the job offer in my hand that outlines what the next step in my career looks like.

I want to delete Instagram again as soon as I have sold all my stuff, and I have crafted and posted my Winston-Salem, NC farewell post.

I want to find love in a hopeless place (jk haha).

I want a new ski jacket to take with me onto the best slopes this winter.

I want understanding of who I am and what value I should derive from my family as it currently stands.

I want closure on the loss of my dream I had always had for my life that I lost in 2021.

I want the childlike belief back that adults are the perfect superheroes I once believed them to be.

I want the praise I feel like I deserve from my parents regarding the hard work I have done after being laid off to sustain myself, work that others did not do.

I want peace in the absence of those I’ve loved, and the dreams I once clung to with an iron grip, that are no longer here or possible.

And what am I going to do in order to get these things?

I am going to live.

Written: November 21, 2024