I have been flying too high and too fast for a few months now. I really don’t have any idea how to do this half way thing. I have felt myself starting fall and yet I have propped myself up with half measures and flown on, knowing there were holes in my wings and that my tail feathers were too sparse to keep me from going off course.
I have flown in the dark with no lights when I knew better.
I have flown alone in the rain and been angry because I am getting wet and no one seems to care.
But, I realize now that no one really understands what it is like for me to attempt flying at all.
How could they?
So, as I have flown on and on and on these last few months; I have ignored the cost.
I have known the debts were piling up but I pushed them aside for reckoning on another day., because I figured if I came down from the sky long enough to reckon with them I might never take off again. And the thought of being stuck down there on the ground was more than I could bear.
And yes, what is obvious to others is not always crystal clear from inside my personal point of view: That is true for everyone.
For how can you know a thing if it never happened to you?
You cannot understand what it is to live at not even a quarter percent of the speed of life of what those around you live.
You cannot feel the sadness of what it is to watch your loved ones leave for things and places that you will never again enjoy or experience.
But does it matter?
If it matters too much you cannot take off again.
Your wings, my wings, will get weighted down.
If I let the sadness over what is lost and what will be lost weight me down, I will never fly again. I simply cannot let that happen.
I would rather fly too close to the sun and scorch the faulty wings I have…
I realize that I have to come down and painstakingly let them cool and arrange them back into place, but each time it scares the shit out of me.
I go the ‘what if’s? ‘ pretty quickly.
What if?? this is IT? i.e. I am screwed and I will not be able to take off again. I am weighted down by pain and fatigue and no matter what I do to battle them I seem to sink further and further down.
I start to panic and feel as though I never had wings at all….Maybe I imagined them.
Who was I kidding? I don’t get breaks like that.
Then comes a round of nasty medication to repair the damage.
And I wait and I survive.. moment to moment.
Finally, there is a little break in the clouds.
I wake up one day and feel like there is something folded behind my shoulder blades. I can feel them, yes, it IS them.. My wings.
As I spread them I notice that there are a lot of new blood feathers growing in and that I should be careful to not lose any or break them, lest I bleed out.
So, I take off cautiously and try to fly low.
Sometimes I crash after a single flight and find myself bleeding and torn and back where I started… What If? What If?
My rational mind tells me that the What If’s are simply the voice of irrational panic and that I should not listen, but there is definitely a part of me that is right there, quivering in response.
So, nasty medication on board and all… I step cautiously again onto the cliff and just look down. Down below there is a stream of clear, cool water and there are trees that can provide me with their green shade. I desperately want off of the cliff I am on.
I close my eyes.
I let myself fall.
I spread those wings and…
They carry me!
They carry me!
I don’t have to fly the whole way down. I can let the air currents buffer me. I am not alone after all. No matter how bitter and how sorry for myself I feel, I always come back to that sense of wonder and of gratitude.
I do not know why or how or where it comes from but it pops up at moments when I least expect it..
My wings are out and they simply catch the air…. suddenly everything is clear. It is easy.
I want so desperately to hold on to that sensation.
Perhaps it is not the sun I am trying to fly up to but the Creator herself.
She gave me the wings and the audacity to keep trying to fly when I should really be back in bed.
I want to thank Her.
I scream into the wind.
These momentary flashes of insight are enough: They are enough..
to keep me going.
Because as long as I am capable of flying straight into Creation for even a second, everything I experience, good, bad and ugly, is worth the air time, the falls, the melted dreams and the anxious thoughts.
The What If’s will not rule.
I won’t let them.
Amen.