December 15, 2014 - Written by: Yazmin Joy

Wishing Upon Someone Else’s Star…

On a chilly, starry Friday night in December, three twenty-something girls stepped out of the carnage of Oxford street and into Duke Street’s Wagamama.

It had been a long time since my besties and I had kicked back to contemplate life at our local Wagas, but here we were, finally, together again. Huzzaahh!

As we slurped on our Clean Green juices two things struck me. The first, was that juiced avacado is AWESOME. Why had I not discovered this before!?

Secondly, was that I hadn’t detoxed from my own hot mess of a life to listen to other people’s dreams for quite a while.

I mean, I know how to wish for myself, but what about the people around me?

What were they wishing about? How much did I really know about my friends and their desires?

As the waitress brought over our plates of steaming Ginger Chicken Udon and Katsu Curry, the discussion was already well under way:

Abby* had made the bold decision to go for her dream and audition for drama school. Go girrrrrl! And I was faithfully pursuing my ambition of becoming a millennial Jo March, well, at least attempting to – one blog post at a time… Mwahahahahahahaa *Evil cackle*

But as Abby and I chatted, starstruck over our stellar ambitions, our third companion, Jess, sat composed and thoughtful. Finally she spoke up:

‘I don’t know guys, I often go through moments of feeling like… I don’t know who I am anymore, or what I’m doing, you know?’

Jess’s voice began to break. Tears started to fill her eyes.

After a hellish break-up and a cataclysmic string of bad living situations, Jess’ wish for the future was simple: she wanted to get her shit together.

What happens when you stop wishing?

I knew exactly what she meant. It’s great having wishes an’ all, but what if they don’t come true? What if we give up on our wishes?

(Yum.)

The truth was that none of us really knew where we were going to end up in the following year. Each of us had ‘wishes’ but beyond tonight? Beyond Wagas? Beyond the Ginger Cheesecake and London’s twinkly Christmas lights!? Who knew what was ahead of us.

The only thing we did have was each other.

It got me thinking about friendship and how wishing upon our own stars wasn’t enough in life. That the people we love needed our wishes too.

If this was a movie, the camera would have pulled to a wide shot at this point. B.O.B’s Airplanes feat. Hayley Williams would have begun to play as the three of us held hands across the dinner table…

I think one of the signs of real, deep, bonafide friendship is the ability to share your deepest wishes, knowing that the people you share them with are going to root for you.

We spent the rest of the night trying to make origami stars. Do you KNOW how hard it is to make a 3D sculpture out a single piece of paper??? What is this wizardry?

Our paper stars may have been a total fail, but the idea that wishing upon someone else’s star was something that stuck in my mind on the way home.

It might be a shot in the dark, but sometimes the best wishes we can make are for the ones not looking up. Wishes of love, happiness, success, prosperity and yes, JOY.

Have a great week peeps!

Wagamama’s #WishUponAStar campaign donates 50p to UK Youth when you make wish for someone you love along with a snap of your origami star.