What do you want?

I met with my spiritual director yesterday at my prayer retreat. Not only is my spiritual director awesome in general, but she has a similar story to mine – her father had a cancer caused “stroke”, and died about two months later.

So she gets it. She gets what it’s like to feel like this, to feel like I might not make it through, to feel like it’s a miracle that I even get out of bed in the morning, to feel helpless and perpetually on edge, to feel unable to make even the simplest of decisions. She knows, and she is able to sit with me in it all, and that is beautiful.

During our time together yesterday, she asked me a simple question: “What do you want?” Now, I’ve been really bad at making decisions, but I’ve actually been pretty good about knowing what I need (chocolate, to just read Harry Potter for hours on end, to watch Gilmore Girls with my mom, etc). So when my spiritual director asked me “What do you want?” I had my answer: I want to be with my mom.

I want to be with my mom. As often as I can, for as long as I can. I want to be with my mom. To be in the same room as her, to laugh with her, and cry with her, and just be silly with her. I want to take care of her – to take her to the bathroom, to make her meals, to get my sister’s dog to love her again.

I want to be with my mom. More than anything else, that’s what I want. I don’t really want anything else.