on Just Publishing Advice:

Why is a wish in the past tense in English when it’s about something you want now or in the near future?

You might say that it’s simply grammar. But if you think about it, for a wish to come true, it needs to happen in the past.

I wish I had a dog. For this wish to become a reality, you needed to buy, borrow or steal a dog before now.

There are many uses for the verb wish, so let’s take a look at some of them.