When you’re on the edge you can either jump or walk away

I’ve always been drawn to the seedy side of life. I can’t explain it, and I doubt many people would admit to experiencing the same desires, but it’s like I had to struggle all my life NOT to do the wrong thing. I constantly battled with the desire to do things I knew were not only wrong, but also dangerous, reckless, and illegal. I’m not even just talking as an adult; this divine battle for the nature of my soul has been going on for as far as my memory reaches back.

Besides the typical childhood troubles, and a pregnancy at the age of fifteen, I kept myself on the straight and narrow path. I had straight As in school, graduated high school at fifteen, started college at sixteen. Got a Masters Degree. Interned in a very prestigious unit of Federal Law Enforcement. Even got married and settled down. By all appearances I had won the battle and goodness prevailed.

But then I got divorced. I realized I had spent a handful of years living a life that made me miserable. I didn’t know what direction I wanted my future to go, but I could ignore the siren song of the dark side no more. I fell off the grid.

For a year I gave myself over to the insanity of my reckless desires. Oh, I maintained the nice apartment and car as my security blanket.  But for all intents and purposes I was in another world. I did things nice girls aren’t supposed to do. I spent lots of time in places good girls don’t go. I took jobs that nobody who knows me today would even believe if I told them. And I broke laws. Many of them.

I was a fresh Spring leaf; green and starting to unfurl. Slowly I stretched open, as the new me adjusted to my new lifestyle. Swinging in the breeze, yet clinging to the tree branch for security. This insane lifestyle was more than I ever could have imagined. I thrived, devouring every illicit opportunity that came my way, glowing from within. Like the leaf that turns fiery shades of red in the Fall, I came alive in this crazy life. But as that beautiful, bright leaf quickly falls from the security of the branch, I could sense my security slipping away. A year is a long time when you’re living on the edge. Eventually something has to give…..

So I did.

I gave it up.

One night I realized it was time to get back on that straight and narrow path. My friends never heard from me again. I disappeared. I had to. To keep even one connection to that life was enough to pull me back. It had to be a clean, permanent break.

And here I sit, years later, in a nice house with a fabulous husband and a couple kids. The Siren Song still plays in my head, and some days I struggle to remember why I walked away. Ah, she’s a charmer, the past. So I remind her that I made my choice. And I hold my head high, because there’s no shame in self-discovery. The shame would be if I had never taken that risk.

This hauntingly introspective post comes to Three Day Weekend courtesy of Tiffany, who you can find on her blog, Lattes and Life, or on Twitter @give_me_a_latte.