I spoke recently with a young woman who is going through a painful transition.

She is claiming some space from a long-term relationship.  Part of that space claiming is moving to her own place.  I think I’ll say that again:  Her own place.

How many of us have had such a thing?  For many, having physical space to claim as our own has never happened.  We bump from home to college to friends to partners and often, so very often, we never have the chance to breathe in space that is not peopled with the needs, wants and desires of others.

I am proud of this young woman.  Proud because she is listening to the wisdom of her heart; the wisdom that tells her it is time to learn new things about herself and about life.

And oh, I join the others who have expressed envy.  I am one of the have-always-lived-with-others who sigh deeply when hearing about her studio apartment.  I love my life and my people and the gift of my man next to me each night.

And, yet there is this always within me; a longing for that place of my own arranging, my own adorning, my own.

Maybe that’s what the spiritual journey is all about:  Finding that place.  Not a place we control, but a place where we know that the arranging, the adorning, the inhabiting is ours.

In such a place, we settle in with ourselves and with our God and know ourselves to be home.