The Space Between Perhaps

On wishes, uncertainty, and why we continued to hope.

This year, my birthday wish was very simple.

After my follow-up appointment, I wanted to go to my favourite bakery and finally have the cruffin I had been thinking about for weeks.

A few days earlier, I had even messaged a friend:

“I’ve got a date with a cruffin afterwards, and honestly, I’ve been missing it ever since. It was so yummy! 😋🥐

My wish is really that simple ✨”

In the end, it didn’t happen.

The disappointment surprised me with how heavy it felt.

Not because a pastry matters that much, but because it suddenly hit me: even something this ordinary, this modest, isn’t guaranteed.

That realisation stayed with me.

When we talk about wishes, people usually think of big things — health, love, success, peace.

But mine was just a cruffin after an appointment.

And yet, even that could be taken away by my body, by the weather, by timing, or by something I couldn’t foresee.

It made me wonder:

What exactly is a wish?

More importantly,

if wishes do not always come true, why do we continue to make them?

If memory allows us to remain connected to the past, could wishes be one of the ways we establish a relationship with the future?

They seem to exist somewhere between reality and the unknown, belonging neither entirely to the present nor fully to tomorrow.

And yet, things that have not happened still manage to shape the choices we make and the feelings we carry today.

Wishing may be, in itself, an act of humility.

It reminds us that some things can only be waited for.

Some things can only be hoped for.

And some things, no matter how small they may seem, may never unfold as we imagined.

Over time, I’ve started to notice a difference between wishes and goals.

Goals are things we can plan for and work towards. We measure progress and tell ourselves that, with enough effort, we will eventually arrive.

Wishes feel different.

They often point towards things that cannot be achieved through effort alone.

Perhaps this is why wishing can feel strangely humbling.

It asks us to acknowledge that not everything can be solved, earned, or arranged according to our plans.

Sometimes, all we can do is wait.

Sometimes, all we can do is hope.

Hope may exist precisely because the future cannot be predicted.

If everything had already been decided, wishes would lose their meaning.

If everything could be controlled, perhaps there would be no need to make wishes at all.

Wishes are born from uncertainty.

They exist within the realm of perhaps.

I have also found myself wondering whether wishes truly change the future, or whether they quietly transform the person making them.

I never got that cruffin.

Yet during the days leading up to my appointment, the anticipation itself brought its own quiet joy.

For a while, I had something to look forward to.

Something ordinary.

Something good.

Maybe the value of a wish does not depend entirely on whether it comes true.

Perhaps it lies in what it does to us while we are waiting.

The way it gives shape to tomorrow.

The way it gently pulls us forward.

Wishing makes me feel small.

Because it requires acknowledging something difficult:

I do not have complete control over my life.

I can hope.

I can wait.

I can pray.

But I cannot decide.

When I think back to that birthday wish now, I still smile at how ordinary it was.

Just a cruffin.

Nothing grand.

But there seems to be something profoundly human about wanting small things.

A favourite pastry after an appointment.

A conversation that lasts a little longer.

A reunion.

Another spring.

A little more time.

If wishes may never come true, why do we continue to make them?

Why do we continue to place our hopes in tomorrow?

Maybe it is because wishes are not simply about the future.

They are consciousness reaching towards something that has not yet happened.