A need I can't explain

“Sometimes we feel drawn to something that seems forbidden because it feels like a way out of pain; sometimes it feels like an escape from the mundane; sometimes it feels easier than continuing to carry the burdens we bear.

And sometimes we reach a pivotal point in our lives and we don’t realize it until we’ve already turned – just a bit. Enough to turn back if we want, wrenching the gears and causing some pain; or clanging into a new experience with the inelegance of unfamiliarity.

So it’s easier to call it wrong, to feel guilty, to seek restoration to the familiar. Because the familiar is familiar, sure – but also because we are grown-ups. We made our own familiar lives. We made what we live. And we wonder if it’s stupid or impulsive or cruel or immature – or WRONG – to change.

It may feel easier to call that THING "something else" because it’s too complicated and too messy and too disrespectful to call it a drop of water in the desert; or a pinpoint of light in the darkness. This is especially true if we didn’t know we were so thirsty and in such profound darkness.

And it may be an obsession which reveals that something has subtly shifted of-course and needs to get back on track.

Just as often, because we’re grownups, it’s a sign that we’re not really who we thought we were. The things that draw us, call us, reveal us, reach deep inside us, can be endlessly surprising. That kind of vulnerability can feel debilitating when it happens just when everything was going SO well. And it can hurt like the dickens to know that even turning a little bit toward that "something" will bring agony to people we have loved forever.

But we are not two-dimensional children with a penchant for petulance and a love of candy. We are full-grown women making a pathway through life and love where none existed before.

What if there’s nothing wrong with that?”

A blogger friend of mine once shared the above amazingly eloquent narrative with me. (After the Rumi quote). It was so creative, memorable and redemptive, that I want to share it again here.

“Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come.” (Rumi)