The sweet spot

If you're lucky, that's where you start: a spot close to the center. A spot reserved by a mom, a dad, a family member. A spot whose position determines the speed at which you are attended to if you're hungry, or sick or are in need of laundry money.

Then, as you grow up, you start your own circle of people and things that are dear to you. They get that spot close to your center. To make room for them, some things inevitably are edged away. A well-worn childhood blanket. Your first best friend. Family. They are still within the perimeters of your attention but often times, just barely.

The growing continues.

At some point, someone will take you in, into the circumference of their circle of first thoughts and priorities. You work your way in, through the protective barricades of family, the viscosity of childhood baggage, the resilience of habit and norm.

Some days it feels like you're gliding through as you catch a ride on a slipstream. Others, it feels like you're in the constant wake of a ride you can never get ahead, never get on.

But you keep at it.  All to get to that spot, close to the center, where you once were or hoped often to be. That spot that gives you the permission to finally rest your head and know that you are within the tight perimeter of what matters most.

That is what love is about -- being in the center, against all odds, of another's complicated, full, distracting existence. Everyday, you seek this pilgrimage toward that Center, and everyday you fight in your mind, how not to lose ground, how not to be edged out.

For it is within this spot -- this confine -- ironically, that love liberates. Without a microsecond of a doubt, when you have gained the rights to this prime real estate, you'll see that no matter how far you may choose to venture out, that spot is yours.

This is your sweet spot.