"If I could wish you just two things: To give you roots; To give you wings."
This must have been someone's wish for me in 2009. I first recall that quote as a teenager from the tv show Designing Women. Julia had passed it along to a little girl going forth on her own journey and it has stuck with me all these years. 2009 was a difficult year for me. I began the year violently ill, and it just seemed to fan out from there. I learned so much about myself. Some good. Some bad. But more so than anything, I learned a lot about my own foundations. I learned who I really had to depend on. I learned some ugly truths about the people and energies in my life. I learned some beautiful revelations about my own self. I put down roots. I began to stand tall. I realized through trial and error that it really IS all about ME - and what I am capable of... Not what pleases everyone else. The mother's words from the book Joy Luck Club (by Amy Tan) echoed in my head all year: "Do you know your worth?" And I began to understand what that means.
It was difficult. But often times growing is. I have a tattoo over my heart that symbolizes chaos - not for the melodramatic affect - but as a reminder that even that which is most beautiful must fight through the ugliest of circumstance to bloom. The I-Ching relates the story of the Lotus blossom and how to grow and become the glory that it is destined to be, it must fight through it's hard shell and all the mud surrounding it to spring forth. This has been my year. There's been a lot of shell - and A LOT of mud and muck...
And in the midst of all that I felt something shifting. Something changing. Something growing. I realized last week it was my wings. I had, in the course of 2009, begun to grow wings. I was becoming ready - and able - to fly.
2010 is a year of promise. The end of an era. The beginning of a new one. A new decade. A new start. It's time. I have always been afraid of heights. I have always been afraid of falling. I clung to my nest of brambles and negativity because, as bad as it was, there was a safety there. A comfort in the uncomfortable. As bad as it was, it was familiar and for me, then, that was okay. I knew what to expect. But at some point over this past year, I began peering over the edge of that nest high up on that cliff and I saw horizons and sunrises and new voyages waiting... And I began flexing those newfound wings. I am still flexing - but my days of soaring are now at hand... I am ready to jump. I am ready to give it all I've got. No risk. No glory.
“Sometimes the fall kills you.
And sometimes...
when you fall...
you fly.”
And sometimes...
when you fall...
you fly.”
Here's to flying high in 2010.
