"if i could turn back time..."

"Be careful what you wish for," she said haphazardly, tossing the statement off without the care it was intended to invoke.

Then she stopped... we do not take enough care with our words, she thought... and I mean that literally, she thought next, but not exclusively.

She struggled a bit with the tangential meanings and beliefs that had to be sorted and referenced...

The statement was a problem because it had come to mean: "Don't wish for things, as everything has an unintended consequence." And in this case, she had recently suffered an unintended consequence.

But that's not what it should mean.

It should mean: "Take care, as wishing is one of our most powerful forces of creation. Be thoughtful. Be conscious. Be present."

You see, she was trained to read between the lines, and she found herself wanting - for what is wanting but wishing? - to know the meaning of a small incongruency she saw on Facebook. And so she had asked. There was no real answer. But the actions her question inspired nearly stopped her heart.

That's when regret set in... and mental obsession. The spinning and spinning of a single thought, into day dreams and other unconsciousness, into the depths of her beliefs - self-defining instead of externally defining beliefs. The furrows on her brow became more prominent. She was unprepared for other thoughts. She couldn't account for time's passing.

Then the paltitude, which was her attempt to shake off the mental binging and return to the present. It became the realization that her beliefs had shifted.

One should wish for whatever one wants. And with the right intent, you really don't have to take all that much care...

Lesson learned, she thought. And it was nice that her brain had conspired, as brains do, to get for her something positive that she could hold on to... the original reality persisted, however, and the pain was not resolved.

Brains are great, aren't they... But so are hearts. And hearts are capable of letting brains conspire as they will, for hearts know they are much more powerful, flexible, and resillient.

Perhaps then, maybe tomorrow, she will learn something about being careful who you love.