Midnight

My hair is sun-drenched with natural blond highlights from the sun and saltwater deluge of the past week, my skin the color of a roasted almond and my mind more clear than the water in which I floated in for hours upon end. The past week which is rich in tradition, was vaguely similar to the weeks of vacations past, yet vastly different all at once.

There was star gazing as there always is. Every year we seem to be at the beach during a huge meteor shower. After an hour of watching, you lose track of how many you've seen. It's wonderful. But this year, as the comets zoomed overhead I wasn't wishing for things I wanted, I was wishing for the things I have. I wasn't closing my eyes and wishing for true happiness, for true love or for health. I have all of those things and in good plenty. And I wish for nothing more; just for, I suppose, that these things to continue to grow, to evolve, to continue to amaze me with a fraction of surprise that each has individually brought to my life as they unfolded delicately, like silk upon my lap.

I can vividly remember the summer before my junior year in high school, watching a huge star with a long tail shoot over the ocean and making a wish that same very second. I remember this moment because just two weeks later, that wish came true. It honestly did. Looking back it was probably due to my own volition, but youth has a wonderful way of blacking out the obvious and fostering hopeful dreams. Ignorance is sometimes a filter I wish popped up more often in my adult years. That was the first time in my entire life that I wished for something and it actually came true. It was a stupid wish; I thought that then and still think that now. But it didn't matter. I wanted it. And it came true.

Nearly ten years later, as I sat there Friday night watching dozens of shooting stars fall from the sky, I realized that I didn't even need to make a wish; that everything I could possibly wish for, short of riches or fame, I have right now. And that realization was so much more fulfilling than the biggest star with the biggest tail shooting across the entire midnight sky.