Athena's Wish

Hello,

My dearest ones.

Thank you so much for joining me.

I'd like to tell you a story about a very special girl who makes a big wish.

Let's see if it works out in the way she expects.

So,

Let's start by taking a great big full body stretch from your toes all the way to your fingers.

Hold it there for a moment and release.

Then take a nice slow deep breath.

Okay,

Let's begin our story.

There was a girl named Athena.

Athena loved to play.

She loved to do gymnastics.

She loved riding on her scooter.

She loved singing and making up dance routines to her favorite songs with her friends.

She loved experimenting with slime and glitter and anything else she could find.

She also loved collecting worms and bugs and critters in her hands and then scaring the older kids with them.

There were some things that Athena did not like as well.

She didn't like sitting still for very long.

She also didn't like when her food had a bunch of different textures mixed together.

She preferred to have each individual food item separated on her plate.

And she didn't like getting her hair brushed.

One day during PE gym class at school,

Athena's class was doing gymnastics.

And to prepare,

The class worked together by pulling out the mats from the equipment closet.

This was one of Athena's favorite things to do.

But she kept having to wait in line.

And she had to do the moves her gym teacher instructed.

She couldn't show off the fancier and more challenging techniques she knew how to do.

Later,

While she was in her math class,

She raised her hand four times to answer questions.

And she wasn't even called on once.

Her classmate even got to pick a prize from the treasure box for her right answers.

Athena knew the answers too.

So she wanted a prize also.

At the end of the day,

During show and tell,

Athena was excited to show the key chain she had made and decorated with gems.

It had taken her a few hours and it looked like a real mermaid.

Before Athena's turn,

One of her classmates brought a brand new Sparkle Plenty Twisty Flip doll.

She could twist his arms or legs in a certain way,

Put it on a desk,

And the doll would do leaps and flips and cartwheels just like a real gymnast all by itself.

It was so cool.

Athena wanted one so much.

She started to feel like her key chain wasn't so great after all.

When it was her turn to go,

She said she forgot to bring anything and didn't share at all.

After school,

When her neighbor came over to play,

Athena wanted to show her friend how fun it was to add green glitter to her puddle of slime.

But her friend wanted to use the green glitter for her own paper bag puppet that she was making.

She wanted it to be an alligator and the green glitter would look perfect for its scales.

Athena didn't want to share the green glitter.

There was only a little left and it was the perfect color to go with her slime.

That night after homework,

When she wanted to make some pretend bugs out of her air drying clay,

She found that her brother had used it all up.

There wasn't any left.

Athena felt so frustrated.

It didn't seem fair that she always had to compromise and share with everyone else.

She wanted to do things her way.

Why couldn't everything just be hers?

That night,

While Athena was in bed,

She closed her eyes very tightly and said to herself,

I wish that I get everything to myself and that I never have to share.

Then she fell asleep.

The next morning when Athena woke up,

She noticed she had a lot more toys in her toy closet.

It looked like all her brother's toys were in there as well.

Even the magnetic dart board that he never let her use.

Athena couldn't wait to get home and play with them after school.

When Athena went to have breakfast,

She was so happy that she got to eat as many waffles as she wanted.

Her brother didn't even want any.

Her mom made so many waffles though that Athena couldn't eat them all.

So the uneaten waffles just sat and got dried out and had to be thrown in the trash.

When Athena got to school,

She had all the mats to herself in the gymnasium.

Athena got to do all the gymnastics she wanted to do with all her own rules exactly as she wanted.

It was great at first.

She did cartwheels and handsprings and flips until she was so tired,

She tied the ropes together into a swing and she sat and swayed back and forth.

Her classmates were all outside playing in the field.

So at the end of PE,

She was the one who had to drag all the mats back to the closet and put them away.

They were heavy.

Usually she worked together with her classmates and it was hard to drag them and stack them all by herself.

During class time,

Whenever there was a question to be answered or a special activity to be done,

The teacher always called on Athena every single time.

At first,

It was fun feeling special and to be the one who was picked over everyone else all the time.

Everyone would cheer her on with every right answer.

It felt really good.

But after a while,

Sometimes Athena wasn't certain of the answer and she wished someone else would get called on.

Everyone just stared at her the whole time though and expected her to do all the work.

Even the cheers started to feel less like praise and more like pressure.

She felt self-conscious.

She didn't like always having to do everything herself in class.

She wished someone else would step up.

Finally,

At the end of the school day,

When the school bus was dropping Athena off at her stop,

She realized she couldn't even see her apartment anymore.

Her whole entire apartment building was buried under a mountain of toys.

She couldn't believe her eyes.

When she looked back at the street,

She saw truck after truck coming.

Each one filled with every toy she could imagine.

On its way to drop off more toys,

Athena couldn't believe her eyes.

Had her wish from the night before actually come true?

Athena was so excited that she scrambled up to the top of the toy mountain.

Everything was hers and she'd never have to share.

At first,

She loved playing with each toy she could get her hands on exactly as she wanted to.

But after a while,

She felt lonely playing all by herself.

And then,

When she looked around,

She realized she didn't even want to play with most of the toys at all.

It was hard to play race when there was no one else racing.

It was hard to be a superhero without friends who could play the villain or could help her think of new dastardly plans or who could even see her on top of her toy pile.

She wished her brother was there.

He would love so many of these toys.

She wished her friends were there too.

She called out to her brother who was at the bottom of the mountain.

Athena was so high up that her brother couldn't hear her very well.

When he tried to climb up the mountain himself,

He couldn't seem to get his hands or feet to actually touch anything.

It was like he was being pushed away by an invisible force field.

Athena watched him shrug and run off to play with his friends.

She watched as the trucks kept coming and dumped pile after pile of toys onto her mountain.

With each delivery,

Her toy mountain grew even bigger and she rose higher and higher.

She thought of all the kids who would have nothing at all to play with.

Well,

She had more toys than she could ever enjoy.

And she was already sort of bored with most of them.

It was beginning to get dark and Athena wondered if she could even get to her room.

She began to dig her way down under the toy mountain,

Burying herself under the pile,

Trying to make a tunnel toward her apartment entrance.

She was getting poked and scratched by the toys that surrounded her as she dug deeper and deeper into the mountain.

She worried that her building was gone entirely,

Crushed under the weight of the mountain.

When finally she found her bedroom window.

Relieved,

Athena managed to open the window,

Push the screen back into her bedroom and slide her way through the opening.

Several toys piled in behind her.

She called out to her mother.

She heard her mom's voice,

But it sounded very far away.

I'm glad you are safe Athena.

Her mom's distant voice said,

Stay put while I figure out how to get to your brother.

I don't know what is going on.

Stunned and exhausted,

Athena climbed into her bed and just looked around,

Trying to fathom what was happening.

Everything felt strange.

She couldn't see out her window.

It was just covered with toys,

Which blocked out all the natural light.

She started to feel overwhelmed.

What would she do with all this stuff?

It was blocking everything else she liked and cared about.

Even the air felt heavy and stagnant around her.

What if she became trapped by all these toys and the toy mountain became her prison and she never got out again?

She started to regret her wish.

She realized that while it was hard to share sometimes,

It was harder to have fun always by yourself.

And just having tons of toys wasn't enough to bring her lasting happiness.

Maybe sharing wasn't so bad after all.

She remembered the times when someone else shared with her and how good that made her feel.

She closed her eyes very tightly again.

This time,

She said,

I want everyone to be happy and have fun.

I love to share.

She was so worn out from the events of the day that she fell right to sleep.

The next morning when Athena woke up,

The toy mountain was gone and she felt so grateful.

She could see out her window again and breathe the fresh air.

She looked at all the toys remaining in her room and realized she still had many things to play with.

During gym class at school,

Athena cheered her classmates on even when they struggled to do gymnastics maneuvers that Athena found easy.

And at the end,

They all worked together to put the mats away.

Athena didn't feel so upset when she wasn't called on in class.

She still raised her hand and was pleased when she was called on,

But she didn't take it so personally when she wasn't.

After school,

When her neighbor wanted to use the green glitter,

Athena told her she could use it all.

Athena still had some purple glitter that would look just as good in her slime.

And when Athena saw how happy her friend looked when she held up her finished alligator paper bag puppet with its glittery green scales,

Athena felt proud and happy herself.

Seeing her friend's joy helped her feel even happier than she had felt when she had all the toys to herself.

And that evening after homework,

Athena and her brother had a great time riding their scooters together.

The most fun part of playing was using her imagination and sharing the experience with someone she cared about.

It wasn't really about the toys at all.

The end.

All right,

Dear ones.

Thanks for listening.

I hope you can see that while it's perfectly okay to enjoy having things and to like some time by yourself,

It can also be great to share.

You can share toys,

You can share ideas,

You can share recognition,

You can share space.

You can also share your worries or hardships.

Whenever you share,

You are adding to the joy of the world.

You're making connections with others,

And you're building trust.

And that is a beautiful feeling and an amazing gift.

It may also help to remember that whenever someone else is getting something like a toy,

A compliment or an opportunity,

That doesn't mean that you are lacking in any way or missing out.

One person's success is not your failure.

It just means that person is having a moment.

We can feel happy for them and support them because you will have your moments too.

The more of those special moments we all can have,

The happier we all can be.

The light and love you have to offer the world is powerful.

And the more you give,

The more you will receive.

Sweet dreams,

Dear ones.

Good night.

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Good night.