Okay, I’ll admit that that’s not a very catchy title. But I saw a tiktok today that said to sit down and write out 100 things that you desire. Nothing too big or too small. To be honest, it’s not the first time I’ve heard that. Years ago my partner and I sat down to write the same list because I’d read it in a book, or seen it on social media. We didn’t reach 100 items. The list is lost now. And I have NO idea if we ever did any of the things on the list. Here, in my little home on the internet, I’m hoping that it will be easier for me to refer back to. And I hope it inspires you.

Disclaimer that at the end of the day these are my desires, and so they are deeply personal. I know that some of them are impossible but I am going to include them anyways. You may or may not agree with them and that is okay. I’m going to start with big easy ones and hopefully work down to smaller ones. And hopefully imagine 100 things.

Let’s just expand our awareness around our desires and see the abundance we already have.

1. Write a book about queer joy
2. Publish a coffee table book
3. Set up my online shop
4. Finish my iphonography course
5. Start and finish my posing course
6. Show a collection of photos in an art gallery
7. Visit every Disney park in the world (this has been on my list for so long, but as I get older and my values change it seems less like a desire I currently have and more like an old promise I made to myself that I don’t want to break.
8. Have a claw foot bathtub
9. Take a DNA test and connect with more family
10. Make a perfect creme brûlée
11. Own a bookshop
12. Have a house on the beach
13. Get a weekly massage
14. Learn to play the banjo
15. Relearn to play the guitar
16. Relearn to play the piano
17. Learn to speak a foreign language close to fluently
18. Stay hydrated
19. Grow a u-pick flower farm (seriously my backyard raised bed garden that we made ourselves has inspired me)
20. Create more than I consume
21. Not have any cavities
22. Go to culinary school
23. Open a flower stand
24. Have game nights with friends
25. Start my own cooking show
26. Learn how to Tattoo
27. Be a painter
28. Prioritize my relationship with my partner
29. Write more. I feel like I have so many words inside of me, but a block when it comes to letting them out.
30. Have a fireplace
31. Stop comparing myself to other people
32. Move out of Arizona – I love the desert and the community but it is so so so hot.
33. Break my cell phone addiction
34. Create something beautiful that is sold at a store like anthropologie
35. Not get distracted so easily (am I the only one that opens an app to look something up, forgets the thing, and has to go back to the original app to remember it?)
36. Have enough money that I don’t have to worry. I don’t need to be rich, but being able to afford as much therapy as I would like would be nice.
37. Run a marathon – idk why I come back to this. I’ve never been a runner, but I’m so drawn to this idea.
38. Have an all out Pinterest worthy sleepover
39. I want a surprise party – obviously I can’t throw myself a surprise party but I want one.
40. Meet Tamora Pierce. Lol right? But no dream too big or too small here.
41. Photograph Taylor Swift’s wedding
42. Talk to my high school best friend. I just miss her.
43. At this very moment I wish my dog would stop barking.
44. Have a swimming pool with a hot tub
45. Be really talented at nail art
46. I know I said clawfoot tub, but I want a whole wet bath. That’s luxury lol
47. To listen to myself better
48. To trust my intuition
49. Sometimes I’d really like to be famous, and sometimes I don’t want that at all.
50. Reach out for help when I need it
51. For plus size clothes to be cuter and more affordable
52. Go Christmas caroling
53. Have backyard dinners and movie nights
54. Create and nurture a friend group for said activities
55. Live on a queer farm
56. Be a movie star or pop star

It’s funny that as I write some of these things down I immediately delete them like oh nope I don’t want that that was a thought someone else had. I read once that your first response is how you were raised and your second is the one that you actually believe. That has been really helpful for me to remember. I’m stuck now and I don’t know what else I want to add to this list so I’m going to have to revisit it.

 

I left off last time at 56 and I want to address it again:

57. Take summers completely off of work. So make enough money and budget well from September-May that June, July, and August I just don’t work at all.

58. Have a Halloween party

59. Not let fear hold me back from pursuing things. i.e. what if no one comes to my Halloween party?

60. Sell my art as art. Like genuine hang-on-the-wall art I was able to do this by showing at the Sawdust art festival!

61. Be better about writing to friends in other states. I ordered a bunch of postcards to do exactly that and then I lost them…

62. Do sponsored content. As a product photographer, I have a skill set that is right in line with that, but I’ve not pursued it.

63. Stop photographing stock photos

64. Go to Paris and visit the Louvre – I can’t believe that we’ve had this accomplished – this one felt like an impossible far fetched one, and I’m so glad that it happened.

65. Go to Washington DC with my partner and visit all the museums

 

66. Start a flower farm

67. host game night