Why do I feel conflicted between wanting someone and wanting freedom?
Mirabai lived this tension her whole life—and she never resolved it by choosing one over the other. She wanted union with the divine *and* she wanted to remain untethered. She desired intimacy *and* she needed solitude. The conflict you feel isn't a problem to solve; it's a truth to hold. Our culture teaches us that real love means merging, losing the boundary between self and other. But eros—true desire—doesn't ask you to disappear. It asks you to show up more fully, which paradoxically requires you to stay separate, to have your own ground to stand on. When you feel torn between connection and freedom, it's not a failure of commitment. It's your self-preservation instinct meeting your hunger for closeness. Both are real. Both matter. Mirabai's freedom came *through* her fierce love, not despite it. She examined this conflict constantly in her poetry. The answer isn't to choose—it's to stop treating them as opposites. Real intimacy requires real independence. Real freedom means you're free to love, not free *from* love.