Three nights ago, I’m lying in bed.  My wee, soft-glowing lamp is still on.  I’m doing the Morgan Thing, and staring off into the abyss of books, my growing collection of stationery porn and the pile of clothes I’ve yet to unpack from my recent trip.

My mind: she can’t stop, won’t stop.

And then: like a cosmic palm to the forehead (like when we were kids and would play “Preacher” and say, “BLESS YOU!” whilst slamming our open palm into the forehead of a friend), I get this message:

Why do you think your life isn’t waiting for you?  
Why do you think you have to ‘do’ anything?  
What makes you so special that you think you can create the life you came here to live?

Um.

I didn’t have a good answer (there is none). So I gave the Universe a cosmic nod that just said, “Word,” and turned off my light.

And oh… the dreams I had.  You guys, there were piles of owls (yes, piles), a falling sky, and a message I’ve been waiting for for almost ten years.  All of it saying not just, “It’s time,” but more accurately pointing out:

It has never not been time.

There are things I want.  Things I have never not wanted.  Things I have spent so much time focusing on longing for that I’m pretty sure I’ve lost years of my life and tons of energy.  (Not that longing is malpractice in life; but longing for the wrong reasons will only ever lead to suffering.)

It’s only been recently that I’ve been willing to surrender my personal will to the will of the Divine — and a long time coming being willing to muster the faith that God / Spirit / Source / Great Mystery (of which I am an irrefutable part and reflection of) is always trying to keep me on course.

But sometimes, I’m like an un-potty-trained puppy that doesn’t know how to walk on a leash yet, and so just sits down and drags her ass the second she is trying to be led to the place where she can finally, mercifully, relieve her bladder.

I forget sometimes: It’s my path.  It’s my course.  I agreed to lead this life and I am only suffering because I am still convinced that someone or something dangerous is holding the leash.  However:

“I am so sorry I followed that intuitive hit
to leave that bad relationship /
live that unlived life /
create that beautiful thing,”
said no one ever.

Maybe you know the feeling?

Of course you do.  We all do.  Which is why, when we’re being stubborn, untrained puppies, we have to keep one another accountable.  It’s why we have mentors, children, beloveds — all teachers who will hold up a mirror and say, “Here you are.  And here’s who you’re not.  That thing keeping you from your True Self?  It’s bullshit.  That thing keeping you from falling in deep love with your still-forming self — and the world?  It’s not real.  You’re making it up.  Stop.”

It’s the mark of someone who truly loves you who will (kindly) say what’s true, even if you rage at them, spit (not literally, please don’t actually spit) and deem yourself unfit to take on the hard, hard work — not of freeing yourself, but remembering that you are already free.

Though it is Love’s true form that our beloveds guard our solitude, it is our sovereign right (and responsibility) to do our own work, and to remember:

We did not come here to suffer.
We are not living a life of deprivation.
We are not meant to be small, or undernourished by our lives, or our beliefs, or our experiences.

• • •

Every night before I sleep, I offer up my life, all my attachments, all my beliefs and hard work and self-righteousness:  Take it from me, I pray.  If it isn’t meant for me, if it’s not mine, I release it.  Let it be clean.  Let it be clear.  Let it be quick.  

I no longer believe I have to suffer to learn my lessons.  And though I believe that pain is a reliable, completely trustworthy impetus toward transformation, I surrender my will — and my belief that I know what’s best for me — to my Higher Self.  To God.  To whatever force is trying to bring me into fullest alignment with what my friend Jill calls “the glimmering golden thread” at the Center of each of us.  If this thing is asking for resonance and alignment, then I surrender to It.

Except for when I don’t.  Like the other night, my pillow tear-soaked and snot-stained, when the Voice spoke up and was like (taps microphone),

“Um, hi.  Did you not ask for this?
Did you not ask to have all that is not yours taken?
Did you not ask for kindness, for clarity, for the path to be paved for you?
Are you paying attention???”

And I, just for a second, felt the peace of this truth: that I have been given everything I’ve asked for.  I’ve been given more of everything I’ve focused on (for better or worse)….

…and then I went back to crying.  Because: victimhood.  And because it just feels so good to be home sometimes.  Even if “home” is a creepy rendition of Nobody Loves Me….

And maybe I needed that — maybe we all do.  Sometimes grief is a long hallway we have to walk, feeling all the feels and doing it alone.

But sometimes, there have been plenty of long fucking hallways, and we need to rewrite the story:

“I’m lonely,” becomes:
I feel embraced by my larger purpose.

“I’m afraid,” becomes:
I’m curious how this will all unfold.

“I don’t understand,” becomes:
I feel so much wonder.

And perhaps “alone” is far too Spartan, considering the pleasure Spirit takes when we listen, when we follow, when we are willingly led.  “We’re all just walking each other home,” Ram Dass says.  Maybe, if we’re willing, we can see how everyone — everything — is Destiny holding the tattered leash that tugs at us from beyond, and toward our greatest Becoming, which is our true Home.

(Me.  Today.  Home.)