My daughter Tammie cheerfully announced, “Our cruise ship will be leaving the dock in seven days, eight hours and thirteen minutes.” Looking down at the cruise ship’s navigator app in her phone, she questioned, “Have you looked at the dining room menu? What would you order if you were on the ship today?”

I complained, “The closer we get to leaving for the cruise, the more anxious I feel. I feel like a child waiting for Christmas Eve and Santa’s visit.”

“That’s wonderful, isn’t it?” exclaimed my daughter, like a true high school cheerleader.

Frowning, I slowly shook my head no and explained, “When you and your sister were little, the last few days before Christmas was painful. Your anticipation and hopes made you emotional, anxious little people, which made me feel sad. The holiday was supposed to be fun. Instead, you wished away all the days and the fun things we could do leading up to Christmas. You just wanted that one day to arrive.”

Holding up her phone for me see the screen, Tammie asked, “Doesn’t looking at the navigator app make you think about the fun things we will get to do, to see, to experience?”

I insisted, “The app does make me think about all those things, but since I can’t do them until we get to the ship, I feel like I am spinning my wheels and getting nowhere. I feel like I am wishing my life away.”

The phrase, ‘wishing my life away’ made me think of my mother. When I was in third grade one evening before Christmas, I lamented to my mother how I didn’t like waiting for Christmas Eve and wished it would hurry up and come. My fifty-five-year-old mother’s sage advice was, “Don’t wish your life away.”