Welcome to day 25 of my daily self commitment to write each day for 15 minutes.
It’s late, I am listening to Late Night Vibes on Spotify and feeling like something is on the horizon but I can’t quite make it out.
A year ago I sat in a different kitchen, with a different computer, listening to different music and living without a dog. I felt a similar way that I do now, that I was sure about something, so sure, so so so damn sure, but the pieces of the puzzle weren’t fitting together. I anticipated the let down, I felt it in my bones, but I couldn’t quite face it, I couldn’t quite let go of the fantasy that I was using to navigate my decisions. I was sure that what I believed was possible—was possible, that if I loved with all of my heart—I could love this thing into life. Maybe if I loved hard enough, big enough, patiently enough—then the stars would align and the sky would open up and things would be as I wished them to be, as I saw them—through the eyes of my heart.
The let down was a giant free fall from the sky. On the ledge where I stood looking out, hoping that I would jump and fly, there was a bottom. And as I leaped and spread my wings everything began to malfunction, my wings got weak and my breathe became short and I lost all of my power and slowly, very slowly and gently, I fell to the ground.
On the ground I lay there—for quite some time. I laid among the rocks and the wreckage of those who had tried to fly before me and I wondered if this is how it will always be when I try to fly. I thought, here we are again, at the bottom, looking up at the sky wondering if we will ever learn how to fly. Will we ever be able to fly?
My wings were flapping, they were broken; their brokenness caused me pain and heartache. I wondered if I was delusional, if everything I ever thought was real was just a fantasy I had made up in my mind. Like I said before, this wasn’t the first time I was down on the ground with clipped wings wondering how in the hell I would get back up the mountain to try again. But it was definitely the first time I had been this wrong. It was the first time I had felt the glide—had seen the wings work—had felt what it is like to soar and then had it all backfire and malfunction. It was the first time that the thing I felt was right and real was within reach and then taken from me at the last minute.
I could’t let go, I laid there for awhile. I turned to those clipped wings and I said. “Do you think we can do it again? Do you think that if we try with all of our might that we can make it back up, just you and me?”
The difference between then and now is that now I see how necessary it is to believe that the wings are the only thing that will get us back up the mountain. I used to think if I had help, if I had someone watching over me and lifting me back up, someone there to patch my wings that maybe I could get there more quickly. Now I know better. Now I know the only thing capable of getting me back up that mountain to try again is me.
With all matters of the heart, this is a very difficult lesson to learn. We think we can love things into submission, that we can make people believe something they do not believe. However, the truth is, we only can control our own destiny, and most of the time, when destiny has a plan she will let you fall off the cliff and break your wings to make sure you avoid the wrong thing. Destiny would rather you be broken and laying on the ground than have you engage in the thing that is not right for you.
Do you have to thank Destiny for the lesson? Nah. You can be mad. You can scream or cry or demonstrate your disappointment in your own way. But eventually you will be the fool—because you will wake up and you will see destiny there, holding all of the things that are truly meant for you, and you will realize you were wrong for doubting her.
And if somewhere along the path to your Destiny you miss something that was truly meant for you—it will come back around. Perhaps it will look and feel a little different, it may be older and wiser, or maybe it will be disguised as something else.
But does this mean you stop trying to fly? No, no no. In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
What kind of love do you deserve?
Until tomorrow,
Teresa
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