They say there’s linings made of silver folded inside each raining cloud Well, we need someone to deliver our silver lining now. And are we there yet? Home, home, home.

I’m told that being an adult involves thinking ahead and making goals and knowing what you want to do and paying bills and taking actual responsibility for your actions even when you don’t really want to. Because no matter how much you think back to your glory days—college or even high school; take your pick—you’re grown up now.

And being grown up means rationality. Logic. Sacrifice. Restlessness that was okay in your teen years because it meant you were open minded with a wide variety of interests; now it just seems flaky and a little juvenile, even to yourself.

So fine, I’ll make goals. I’ll graduate from university next year with two degrees and two theses, but probably still no concrete idea of what I want to do. Or where to go next.

I like Chicago. But I’m told it’s cold. And then I wonder…does it matter? Do I care? If moving to Chicago is what I want, why don’t I just go?

Is that too selfish of me? Do I care? Of course I do. Usually.

Yet it just occurred to me that it’s kind of hard to make goals for myself when my self doesn’t quite know what it wants. So excuse me for a moment while I process. Call this a running diatribe if you’d like, but I prefer the term “open and unfiltered self expression.” So maybe just consider yourself lucky that I’m sharing this at all. Because usually I wouldn’t but today I’m feeling a little irrational and quite a bit petulant and there’s a first time for everything, right?

Well then, what do I want?

I want to go home. And I want to know where that is exactly.

I want to eat speck and pasta with my Host Dad’s tomato sauce and Tuscan bread with olive oil and salt. I want to have real gelato one more time. Or maybe more than that, if this whole thing is about being honest.

I want to go everywhere and see everything and meet everyone; without worrying about money, without being shy, without wasting hours upon hours in stuffy airplanes and long immigration lines.

I want my senior thesis to jump from my brain into the hands of my professor and basically research, outline, and write itself.

I want to be consistent. As a blogger (what an awful term. Bleh), a student, a secretary, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a general human being.

I want to be able to cry when I know it would make me feel better. And I want to know why I can’t.

I want to write something people want to read. Partly because I’m a words of affirmation person and partly because ideas, even fictional ones, are better when shared.

I want to be with someone who’s a little dangerous, a little wounded, and probably a lot bad for me. And I want it to be okay that I probably won’t find him at church. I’ll just have to bring him there and hope he doesn’t lose what it is that drew me in the first place.

I want to protect myself without seeming villainous or self-centered. If you feel you can tell me anything, please know that you truly can and I will do my very best to be loving and supportive in any way possible. But if this is not reciprocal, then where does that leave me? Alone and drowning in myself.

I want to express what I want without seeming petty or childish. Or like I don’t care what God’s plan is for my life. Because that isn’t true.

I want life to be easy. Not for me, but for the people I love. I want my parents to retire whenever they’d like. For my sister to get into her dream school. For my Dad not to worry about my ever deepening academic debt.

I want to have lots of kids so that 50 or so years from now I will be my grandma. And I want to be the same inspiration to my grandchildren that she is to me.

I want River Song to come back to Doctor Who. I want Eun Sang to choose Young Do. And I want Maid Marian to go back in time where she belongs.

I want exactly twelve happy days to every one that is even moderately sad.

I want university snow days. Or at least rain that is only ever warm. Even in winter.

I want the A’s without the effort. And the ability to go back and improve those grades from the days when I thought such academic magic was actually possible.

I want to go to Cuba. And North Korea. And Saudi Arabia. Just because I know I can’t.

I want extraordinary willpower so I can use it to exercise every day. But mostly just so I’ll read my Bible, even when it’s not Sunday.

I want my hair to be long enough for people to instantly tell I’ve never cut it because “You’ve never cut it? Really?! Then, why isn’t it longer?” isn’t exactly something I like to hear.

I want clean cut to be enough when I really know that I prefer sharp edges.

I want this to mean something. To be more than a petty, childish expression of my current (and likely changeable) desires. And I want this to actually assist me in the writing of my goals so I stop feeling too unorganized and irresponsible for all the sacrifices that have been made for me.

I want to think I’m not the only one who feels this way. That maybe my exercise in self help has maybe helped you too.

So lastly, I want to thank you. No one asked you to stick with this project; to read all the way to the bottom; to attempt to relate to the wants of someone else, but you did. And I thank you for it.

**Title: “Are We There Yet?” by Ingrid Michaelson**