What is the difference between admiring and desiring?

Sometimes there are things that I see and say to myself, "that's really cool and I like it, but it's not really something I want to be a part of".  And then there are the things that I'm confident are part of what I should always strive for.

But then there are those things, shining in the sky, that draw me toward them like a magnet.  They're tantalizing, yet also foreign.  Because I know they aren't really things that are natural for me, not at all.  Yet there's something about them that both captivates me but also makes me feel forlorn, that maybe, even if I try, I'll never reach them.  And that even if I =could= reach them, to do so would be to give up what I know is even more important -- the things that are a part of me already.

There have been several stars that shined bright in my life.  Three, I guess, I would say.  It's interesting...the first two, I didn't really associate them with each other that much.  They were both special, of course, but they occupied such different spaces in my life.  The first, something that shined in the distance that left and never came back.  The second, both warming me with its light but also knocking me off course, making me uncertain about my path.  The third, I always thought reminded me of that first star.  I knew that inevitably, it would leave and not come back.  I had that feeling, from the beginning.  It was the same, I guess.  That same magnetism that draws me in no matter what.  But now it reminds me of that second star, too.  The same beauty resonates across all three of them, just in slightly different ways.  But there's something so incredulous to me about that "NP" energy.

It makes me think back to the girl in the tower, and it makes me understand once again that feeling that I could never be up in the sky with those stars.  It's not my place to.

It's an interesting feeling.  I don't really feel like it's insufferable that I can never be up there.  I think I've grown to accept that a little more over the years; that I won't be together with the stars and all that.  But there's still this feeling of sadness, seeing them shine so brightly and then thinking "oh...maybe I'll never be able to do that".  I dunno, really!

The stars shine so brightly at night so that they can bring light to people like me, who are always watching them from afar.  I wrote that once.  Is that really true, though?  I'm not sure if it is or if it's not.  Maybe it's different now, that they really are so far in the distance.

Life was different, when the star was visiting the girl in the tower.  The girl was "stuck".  She =had= to leave the tower, is what we said.  I'm not sure.  Seeing the stars, thinking about the tower, thinking about the girl, I'm not really sure what my place in all of it is.  Should she stay in the tower?  Should she leave the tower?  Should she try to become a star?

Hah...just thinking about it, I think it's clear to me which one is the right choice.  She should stay in the tower.  That's always what it comes back to, isn't it?  But I think it's because there is perhaps another way out.  That the girl can change even when she is in the tower.  The star is not the only thing that can bring light to her life.  It's not worth leaving the tower to be with the stars, no matter how bright they are.  In the story, she had to leave, because it was all about the star, about the stars.  But there were other versions of the story too, right?  The version where it was so quiet, so calm.  "A collector of fulfilled wishes", she said.  That girl had a wish, too.  But she wouldn't leave the tower, didn't have to leave the tower, for her wish to come true.

I don't know if my wish will come true.  But if I think between the light of the stars, and the "place where there are no more ungranted wishes", it's clear not only where I belong, but where I would rather be.

It's still important for me to look at the stars.  To imagine what makes them shine so brightly.  To try and bring some of that light into my life, no matter how incredulous it seems.  I thought I had gotten away from that, but it seems that no matter how much I try, they keep on staying a part of my life, drawing my eyes with their magnetic light.  But that's not an unwelcome thing at all.  Maybe everything is as it should be this way.