I want the baby that I lost before it was finished baking but not before I fell soul-crushingly in love with them, the size of a blueberry. I want to lay with them on my chest with the sun streaming in the window. Since I can't have that baby, I want to make, carry and have their little brother or sister, feel the weight of them on my chest, the weight only a sleeping baby can produce, full and utterly trusting of their whole selves. And place a little blueberry on their back so I can be holding both.
I am so sorry for your loss. I have been there. I know that pain. I have two children now and one day I will tell them of the older siblings they didn't have. Although if the older siblings had lived, the children I have now wouldn't have been made. And I love them so. I never quite know how to reconcile all of that. But I know that it makes me appreciate the children I have even more, and I love them twice over: for the children they are and the children they were not. I hope you get to hold your child one day. Keep going. It is worth it.
I want a pair of men’s striped cotton poplin pajamas. I want layers of gold necklaces that I collect slowly, over years. I want to be independently wealthy.
I want to eat strawberries, warm from the sun, that I’ve just picked. I want to eat the middle out of each bun in a tray of fresh baked cinnamon rolls. I want to lick the melted cream cheese frosting from my fingers.
I want to feel the skin on my grandmother’s hands. I want to hear her voice one more time. I want to visit my childhood home and just cry until all the poison is gone. I want my father to love me the way I need to be loved. I want to know how I need to be loved.
I want to own a small house with a big yard. I want to plant a garden and design my kitchen. I want roots. I want to feel a strong sense of place. I want to watch my daughter play in the flowers. I want my daughter to stay this perfectly delicious age forever.
I want 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep in a cool, pitch-black room in a bed that’s all mine.
I want to feel sexy and desired. I want to know what I want and be unafraid to ask for it. I want to believe that I’m capable of and deserving of pleasure. I want to be uninhibited.
I want to be open, soft, tender. I want to be strong and confident. I want to be held like a baby.
When I read that question I think, “where do I even begin?”
I want my own home in a peaceful place. A good life. An adventurous life. I want fresh ricotta and tomatoes on warm sourdough. I want the crunch between my teeth, the sweet and savory. The ocean to admire. The sun to be kissed and warmed by. I want a deep, healthy love. Romance. A family of my own. A life of my own. I want to feel free, even when I am tethered, to be tethered by the good things.
Omg. This post destroys me. My want is insatiable and at times feels all consuming so much that I cannot breathe. I want to feel safe enough in my body that I can put all my wants into words without any fear of how they might not be met.
I want to play in the dirt again. I want to spin and spin like a little girl in wide open spaces. I want to be called in for dinner. I want to be woken from a nap with a plate of food, to re-enter a room full of people who open their arms for me to melt into. I want to be cared for like a child.
I have been thinking about similar things a lot lately - I was not often "cared for like a child" when I was one, and I have found myself longing for that sort of care as an adult.
This is so beautiful, Joy! I want a mini glass greenhouse- one in the backyard that will grow herbs and veggies and ranunculus but also tiny psychedelic mushrooms. I want a super comfy armchair in the greenhouse, however impractical, so that I can sit out there and read the basil poetry and play the ukulele for the potatoes. I want a resident raccoon and twinkly lights all year. I want a lifetime subscription for the National Geographic travel magazine. I want to fill an old, vintage trunk, that creaks when it opens and smells like oak, to hold all my paper treasures. I want to be the isle of refuge that so many other women have been for me.
at this age, mapped with wrinkles and whiskers, tumors and torn muscles, thinning hair and failing eyesight; can i please love myself and this body that has been through so much trauma? i am my own beloved, i whisper into my heart.
“Her body. Who is it supposed to please? What is it for and is it ugly or is out something else?” (From Hot Milk by Deborah Levy) this made me cry and your comment touched again the same spot. May you be beloved to yourself
I would like to do big, belly hurting laughs with my mother - drink tea and watch my children dance in her garden. She died almost two years ago so it will never happen. But in the absence of it, I long for her songs to come on the radio spontaneously whilst I am cooking my children tea so I can sing at the top of my lungs and spin them round and remember x x
For anyone that craves a novel-long extension of this comment section, please please go read Three Women by Lisa Taddeo. She writes about us. It’s about our desires and everything we must do that gets in the way of them: to please, to be believed, to not get hurt, to not get scolded. It is cathartic and heartbreaking and loud. Yet even in her interviews, the author writes “I thought I was writing a quiet little book”.
I want to feel explicitly and astronomically me. 24 fucking 7. I also want to swear more. It feels good. I want to eat chocolate soufflé at any given moment whenever I want- I want them to simply just appear. I want to write softly and loudly at the same time so everyone can hear my quiet thoughts loudly. I want all the selfish things that feel bad but are good. I want this to be seen.
I knew this one would be good when the title popped up in my notifications. 🥹❤️🔥 I have a feeling I’ll be writing a whole piece in response... I want everything — but mostly, I want to be held.
I want to have answered that last phone call in April of 2021 from my mother, before she really lost her mind to dementia. I’ve learned since there is a last time for everything, but the trick is, you never know when that last time will be until it’s gone.
I want to be able to speak my desires with the poetry and the courage that carries this post and these comments. I cannot join all of you in uncovering so much, so beautifully -- but I thank you from the tear-closed well of my heart and my throat for everything shared here.
Is it sad I don’t know what I want? I know what people want me to want. What they think I want. What I tell them I want. I guess if I could have just one thing, I would want my mind to myself. Not to have my thoughts diluted by the wants of others.
I don't know if it's sad or not, Katie, but it's relatable and it's real. Knowing what you want is not a simple thing. And not an unmixed blessing, when it does come.
I want the baby that I lost before it was finished baking but not before I fell soul-crushingly in love with them, the size of a blueberry. I want to lay with them on my chest with the sun streaming in the window. Since I can't have that baby, I want to make, carry and have their little brother or sister, feel the weight of them on my chest, the weight only a sleeping baby can produce, full and utterly trusting of their whole selves. And place a little blueberry on their back so I can be holding both.
This made me cry. Bless you, your sweet blueberry, and all life holds for you.
I am so sorry for your loss. I have been there. I know that pain. I have two children now and one day I will tell them of the older siblings they didn't have. Although if the older siblings had lived, the children I have now wouldn't have been made. And I love them so. I never quite know how to reconcile all of that. But I know that it makes me appreciate the children I have even more, and I love them twice over: for the children they are and the children they were not. I hope you get to hold your child one day. Keep going. It is worth it.
This is devastating and beautiful. I'm sorry, so sorry for your loss.
Me too.
I want a pair of men’s striped cotton poplin pajamas. I want layers of gold necklaces that I collect slowly, over years. I want to be independently wealthy.
I want to eat strawberries, warm from the sun, that I’ve just picked. I want to eat the middle out of each bun in a tray of fresh baked cinnamon rolls. I want to lick the melted cream cheese frosting from my fingers.
I want to feel the skin on my grandmother’s hands. I want to hear her voice one more time. I want to visit my childhood home and just cry until all the poison is gone. I want my father to love me the way I need to be loved. I want to know how I need to be loved.
I want to own a small house with a big yard. I want to plant a garden and design my kitchen. I want roots. I want to feel a strong sense of place. I want to watch my daughter play in the flowers. I want my daughter to stay this perfectly delicious age forever.
I want 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep in a cool, pitch-black room in a bed that’s all mine.
I want to feel sexy and desired. I want to know what I want and be unafraid to ask for it. I want to believe that I’m capable of and deserving of pleasure. I want to be uninhibited.
I want to be open, soft, tender. I want to be strong and confident. I want to be held like a baby.
When I read that question I think, “where do I even begin?”
I want my own home in a peaceful place. A good life. An adventurous life. I want fresh ricotta and tomatoes on warm sourdough. I want the crunch between my teeth, the sweet and savory. The ocean to admire. The sun to be kissed and warmed by. I want a deep, healthy love. Romance. A family of my own. A life of my own. I want to feel free, even when I am tethered, to be tethered by the good things.
"to be tethered by the good things" got me. I am tethered by the good things. I want it to always be so.
Me too, for us all 💕💕💕
Omg. This post destroys me. My want is insatiable and at times feels all consuming so much that I cannot breathe. I want to feel safe enough in my body that I can put all my wants into words without any fear of how they might not be met.
“My want is insatiable and at times feels all consuming so much that I cannot breathe.”
YES
This is beautiful
I want to play in the dirt again. I want to spin and spin like a little girl in wide open spaces. I want to be called in for dinner. I want to be woken from a nap with a plate of food, to re-enter a room full of people who open their arms for me to melt into. I want to be cared for like a child.
I have been thinking about similar things a lot lately - I was not often "cared for like a child" when I was one, and I have found myself longing for that sort of care as an adult.
Sammeeeee
I deeply relate to this. I am realizing how rooted my craving is for the vital nutrients of tangible love that I didnt receive.
To be called in for dinner really hit me deep. ❤️
This is so beautiful, Joy! I want a mini glass greenhouse- one in the backyard that will grow herbs and veggies and ranunculus but also tiny psychedelic mushrooms. I want a super comfy armchair in the greenhouse, however impractical, so that I can sit out there and read the basil poetry and play the ukulele for the potatoes. I want a resident raccoon and twinkly lights all year. I want a lifetime subscription for the National Geographic travel magazine. I want to fill an old, vintage trunk, that creaks when it opens and smells like oak, to hold all my paper treasures. I want to be the isle of refuge that so many other women have been for me.
More and more of what the women want, I say.
Oh your words have undone me a little. To be an isle!!
Love all of this!
at this age, mapped with wrinkles and whiskers, tumors and torn muscles, thinning hair and failing eyesight; can i please love myself and this body that has been through so much trauma? i am my own beloved, i whisper into my heart.
“Her body. Who is it supposed to please? What is it for and is it ugly or is out something else?” (From Hot Milk by Deborah Levy) this made me cry and your comment touched again the same spot. May you be beloved to yourself
thanking you for reading and commenting
Oh boy, can I relate! Me too!
I would like to do big, belly hurting laughs with my mother - drink tea and watch my children dance in her garden. She died almost two years ago so it will never happen. But in the absence of it, I long for her songs to come on the radio spontaneously whilst I am cooking my children tea so I can sing at the top of my lungs and spin them round and remember x x
I want to wear lipstick and wear amazing clothes and sandals. And heels. With no commentary from my kids and husband.
I want a metaverse, a universe where my desires are important. I want to start over.
“I want to start over” -- so honest but beautiful 🤍
“I want to start over” — similar to my frequent wish “I want to go home.”
For anyone that craves a novel-long extension of this comment section, please please go read Three Women by Lisa Taddeo. She writes about us. It’s about our desires and everything we must do that gets in the way of them: to please, to be believed, to not get hurt, to not get scolded. It is cathartic and heartbreaking and loud. Yet even in her interviews, the author writes “I thought I was writing a quiet little book”.
I love this book so much. It broke me wide open.
I am ordering that book right now. Thank you
I want to feel explicitly and astronomically me. 24 fucking 7. I also want to swear more. It feels good. I want to eat chocolate soufflé at any given moment whenever I want- I want them to simply just appear. I want to write softly and loudly at the same time so everyone can hear my quiet thoughts loudly. I want all the selfish things that feel bad but are good. I want this to be seen.
I'd join you in that chocolate soufflé world. You are seen, friend. Your selfish things are less selfish than you think.
Thank you for your words, they made me smile ☺️
I knew this one would be good when the title popped up in my notifications. 🥹❤️🔥 I have a feeling I’ll be writing a whole piece in response... I want everything — but mostly, I want to be held.
I want to have answered that last phone call in April of 2021 from my mother, before she really lost her mind to dementia. I’ve learned since there is a last time for everything, but the trick is, you never know when that last time will be until it’s gone.
I want a dangerous and tender love that lasts.
I want to eat fish and make friends on Mull.
I want to be so full of joy that I die grinning.
I want to be able to speak my desires with the poetry and the courage that carries this post and these comments. I cannot join all of you in uncovering so much, so beautifully -- but I thank you from the tear-closed well of my heart and my throat for everything shared here.
One word at a time. Whenever you're ready. I have a feeling Joy's substack is going to become a safe place for us all.
Is it sad I don’t know what I want? I know what people want me to want. What they think I want. What I tell them I want. I guess if I could have just one thing, I would want my mind to myself. Not to have my thoughts diluted by the wants of others.
I don't know if it's sad or not, Katie, but it's relatable and it's real. Knowing what you want is not a simple thing. And not an unmixed blessing, when it does come.