insomnia

10:00 pm. A quick channel flip to the Outdoor Life Network brings up Pilot Guides. Featured destination: Australia. "We should go there for the winter next time I'm on maternity leave," I say to Adoring and Wonderful Husband. "We'll take off for four months or something and rent an apartment on the beach. Wouldn't that be fun?"

Crawling into bed, my mind is racing. Australia. Australia. I want to go to Australia. We need to start saving money. I want to go to Australia.

I want to take the kids travelling for two years when Boh is 14. (The others will be 12 and 10.) I want three kids. I want to take my three kids to South America, put them in school for a year, have them learn Spanish. (They will already know French by then.) Then we'll go to Africa for eight months. Volunteer somewhere doing...something. Then just travel for four months. Start in Spain and work our way up the through Eastern Europe, to the Nordic countries, to London, and back across the pond again in time for grade 11. (But what about the eastern Pacific Rim countries? Maybe the kids should learn Chinese instead of Spanish? I could teach English in Korea, or Taiwan, or something. I want to go East.)

I want to be the Go-To Guy at work. I want to be excited every day I wake up and jump in the shower. I want to make a difference.

I want to learn French. I want to learn France French. I want to take my kids to spend eight months in the South of France. Check out the Cannes Film Festival. Lie topless on the beach.

I want to learn to write. I want to author a book. The ABCs of Policy Analysis. Or fiction to rival Atwood. Or just be able to blog something witty once a day.

I want to keep my house clean. I want to walk my dog everyday. I want to spend my nights watching Boh play hockey, football. I want my kids to follow their hearts. I want my kids to be kids. Have the time to follow their hearts.

I want to learn not to want.

I want my kids to grow up with their grandmas nearby. I want my kids to experience the world. To know how they would solve the crisis in Darfur by the time they are 18. To know where Darfur is by the time they are 18.

I want my kids to feel the Saskatchewan soil of farmers past course through their veins. I want my kids to smell a prairie spring day. Fresh.

I want a cabin at Regina Beach.

I want Adoring and Wonderful Husband to live his dream. I want a four bedroom house in Sandy Hill. I want to live out of a backpack.

I want to live the simple life. Learn to live in the moment, be happy with the day.

I want you to like me. I want to be the kind of person people like.

I want to run the New York City Marathon.

I want to learn to paint. Or sculpt. Anything that will outlive me. Capture my essence. Say something about humanity. Sign and signifier.

I want to understand the market. The world economy. The rise and fall of our empire. Mathematics.

I want to die an old woman, surrounded by my husband of 50 years, and our kids, and our kids' kids. Speaking Russian. Say to them, "There's nothing I wanted but you. You're all I ever wanted."

I want to go to Australia.

I want to fall asleep.

[I want to quit coming back to add things to this list of things I want.]