What the Heart Wants

 Have you ever thought about your heart as something separate? Have you ever imagined it with it's own mind, deciding what it wants for itself, and if so, have you contemplated it's desires conflicting with the logic of your mind?
I find these thoughts compelling. I think about them all the time. At one point in my life, I thought that I had to choose; either the logical desires my brain could think through and plan out, or the strong, emotional desires of my heart that I can rarely, if ever, think all the way through much less have completely mapped out. Why did I ever think the two were mutually exclusive? Looking back now, I can see that the two extremes have equally bad consequences. When I ignored my heart, I often found myself thinking "What if?" rather than enjoying the moment I was living in. If I went solely with what was more logical, I was constantly planning the next step, and not taking in the beauty of what was in front of me right then and there. In the end, I had no joy in my life when I made it a matter of choosing one or the other.

As of late, I have found myself thinking in new ways, looking at events with new perspective, and I like the change I am seeing in myself. I don't think it's a matter of one or the other anymore, but instead it's about finding the harmony and balance between my heart's desires and my sense of what is logical and what reality is or could be.
 I've been divorced just shy of a month, officially. I am over that relationship, probably much faster than I had thought possible. And I have found out that my ex-husband, for all his talk of my disloyal heart and inability to really love, moved on just as quickly if not more so. At first this took me by surprise, I'll admit. He had said so much to and about me that his own actions seemed hypocritical to say the least. But once I processed it, I was happy for him. I can honestly say I'm happy he's moved on so quickly and effectively; it makes me feel better about the marriage ending in the first place. It confirms for myself the idea that we are both better off without each other. So when is it okay for me to follow suit and find someone else?

What if my heart knows what it wants? When will it be okay for me to openly pursue it as well? When can I find my happiness without feeling the invisible heat disapproving eyes on my back? What's stopping me?
I don't know that anything *is* stopping me. I think I've already figured it out; I know what my next step is. But unlike myself in past situations, I am going to let the balance between logic and emotion help guide me into it.

I can honestly say, with a clear mind, that I am happier now than I ever was before. It has taken years of dis-contentedness to figure out what it was I really wanted in this life. Now I am just going to sit back and enjoy the ride. We only get to live this life once; and I am on my way to knowing at the end I can say "Hell yeah, I would do it again!"