I had been walking for some time.

My feet, though rough and weary, were still hopefully tender.

I crossed through deserts, oasis after oasis teasing my optimism, but I still found the truth and smiled at her.

I had had no clean water in what felt like an eternity, but the tears I cried over things I thought I knew always cooled and cleaned my face.

Even in the midst of my aching I was just grateful to be alive.

So I marched on. Guided by a want that was so desperate to be manifested that it would not let me rest. I gave away all I had.

The food I began with felt better to share than to eat.

The shirt on my back felt better to wrap around someone else’s shivering shoulders than to clothe myself.

My compass began to seem useless, so I gave it to a lost soul.

The want in its entirety led me, whispering “No map needed. Almost there.”

It told me once I got to where I was going I would not need those burdensome things, so I shed them thoughtfully.

Then the blazing sand of the deserts slowly gaveĀ  way to soft green grass, and I learned that the earth worked with those that worked with her.

Beautiful, sturdy, oak trees surrounded me and I made my acquaintance with their branches. In exchange for my warmth, they gave me shade.

I felt safe again.

My aches and pains lessened in witnessing the majesty of change and I felt forgiveness in the wind. Something inside told me to close my eyes and dance, so I did.

Weary, tender, feet stomping and kicking as I through my arms up and embraced what I could only imagine was God.

He hugged me tightly and told me not to be afraid of what would come next.

Upon opening my eyes I found myself in the eye of a storm.

I could not see God, but could still feel myself sheltered and as everything I had come to love around me was destroyed, I centered myself and whispered “thank you” to the chaos.

My flesh rippled in concern, but my spirit stood firmly in admiration.

The want encouraged me still, saying “This is what being alive is. The destruction of one reality for the birth of another.”

When the storm had passed, I climbed through the debris of my mighty oaks; their fallen branches tickling my toes as I made my way.

I was distraught to have to leave this place, but the want said we must go, and so we did.

Walking became as involuntary as breathing and I put much space between myself and the past.

Naked and certain of something I had not yet seen, I grew stronger in the wake of tragedy.

I started to engage the want in conversation, asking simple questions such as, “is everything okay?”

Its answer had the sweetness of honeysuckles.

“Of course, all is well. This is life. You are living.”

The want hummed in my ears of sweet anticipated nothings that meant everything to me, and I kept moving.

It was not until I witnessed my storm-yielded reflection in still waters I skipped across that I realized the depth of myself.

In the gaze of eyes that I knew were my own was the very thing I had been after.

The relentless desire of my existence was not a place, but was the conscious awareness that I was mighty beyond measure.

I was not mighty because of what I had. I shed those things.

I was not mighty because of secure surroundings. Everything was stripped away.

I saw in my tired, wild, eyes that my might and my brilliance were innate qualities, as I was designed to prosper.The old friend I caught looking back at me tickled the corners of my mouth, and I wept foreign, yet familiar, tears at finding her.

The want had finally shown me what I was after, and all along I just wanted me.