We are the friends you worry about.

The wild ones who leap, then look.

Then leap.

And leap.

And leap again.

We are the ones you whisper about, clucking with concern, baffled by our affinity for adventure, our magnetic attraction to misstep.

Do you think we don’t know how foolish we often appear?

Do you think we don’t wish, after one crash-landing or another, that we were built differently somehow? Wired a bit more for caution than abandon?

But this wishing is the real foolishness. This is the bird wishing to be a fish, the lion wishing to be a lamb.

Deep down, we know this.

We catch ourselves sometimes, in the midst of moments where we weigh your lives of care with the same measure of judgment we loathe having visited upon our lives of chance.

We pause.

And we realize: we are no different from you.

We are walking our path, answering our calling. This wildness that seems so reckless? This is our home and our church, out here on the edge. This is our hearth and our dinner bell. The inconstant is our constant. You chart your course; our course charts us.

In that gap between our ways of living lies the real challenge of our friendship, doesn’t it? To truly and willingly exchange shoes. To walk that mile fully, step by step. To consider that a life, an outlook, a perspective other than our own might be exactly right for some.

To let go of the worry, well-intentioned though it may be, because the truth, deep down, is that we each have our own road to follow. Whether we’re called to nest or to explore, to build families or to fly solo, to make love or to make art, the important part is this: we are called. Called by God or Spirit or Universe or Source—the name may vary, but the instinct is the same. We feel the stirring in our soul, and we have no choice but to respond.

We are the friends you worry about, yes, because worry is companion to love.

And love itself is a calling, divinely-inspired, requiring both wild abandon and measured care.

We are the friends you worry about…

Thank you.

We love you dearly too.

~

Author: K.C. Wilder
Image: 诗琪/Flickr 
Editor: Catherine Monkman
Copy Editor: Travis May
Social Editor: Callie Rushton