Last week one of the options for Writer’s Workshop was name three wishes you would want granted by a genie. My immediate reaction was essentially to pivot and run as far from that prompt as possible. Come up with wishes?! Are they kidding?? My chaos felt so vast that the mere thought of putting words to a wish gave me hives.

Jill’s response to the prompt flowed straight through to my heart.

She talks about seeing Aladdin on Broadway in 2016 then goes on to drop the kind of truths that will not be denied.

“I vividly remember sitting in the theater. I didn’t wish for mansions or fame or anything that sparkles from far away. When the genie appeared, I surprised myself. What I wanted wasn’t flashy — it was quieter, closer to the bone. The kind of things you only learn to ask for after you’ve lived a little, loved a lot, and carried the weight of the world on your tiny Norman shoulders. I wanted to belong.”

Please check out J-Dub’s Grin and Bear It post. She’s claimed the best three wishes I’ve ever seen by far.