Let me lift from the ground til my soul is in flight.

There was a bird. A little bird who grew up his entire life just sitting in the nest waiting for other birds to come and go. The birds that accompanied him from time to time didn't really vary in importance - after all, they were simply birds, just someone else to chirp with, another feather to fall. Then this precious little bird decided that he didn't want to live in the nest anymore; he wanted to fly. He was by no means ready to fly, but he jumped out of that nest and went as far as his naive wings would take him. Over the course of time, this bird learned how to fly and eventually went to all kinds of places. Every now and then he would fly near the nest and see all of those birds sitting there comfortably without a care in the world. But this bird, oh no, he had places to go. He had things to learn and sights to experience and heights to reach - he wanted the suffering and the glory of being out of that nest. But as time went on, he thought to himself, "Maybe I could visit that nest one day because I know I wouldn't stay. It would only be a visit." He knew full and well that he was right, he would only stay for a short period of time and chirp with the other faces that used to pass by, nothing permanent. But the more he passed by the nest and saw how imprisoned these birds were, he realized that maybe it wasn't something he wanted to go back to at all. Maybe the nest was suffocating all of the others and he was smart enough to fly away when he could.

There's a reason people leave. There's a reason I left. Granted, I haven't gone back, but lately I've forgotten that reason. Within the past few weeks, I've been constantly reminded as to why. As that bird, it would be hard for you to see the other birds, knowing where you were and how dependent you were upon that nest, that comfort zone. It must be hard for that bird to know how fantastic it feels to fly on your own away from everything you've known and to grow, to learn, to fly. And that bird can say that he did something. And he did it on his own. Without the help of the birds that didn't really matter, without the nest, without anything but himself.

Sometimes I wish I could go back for just a day and not have a care in the world, to just stay in that nest and be comfortable. But leaving that nest, and living uncomfortably for a while, is sometimes what you need. You need to be uncomfortable when your previous comfort was that nest. Because once you become comfortable outside of your comfort zone, your growth now lies in your comfort zone and your past lies in the zone that you used to be a part of. Used to. Past tense. The more and more I think about the nest and the birds in it, I think of how the nest is too big of a risk and an expected disappointment. The nest houses birds that are exactly the same but proclaim to be their own self-righteous bird. Wrong.

As a bird, you just need to open your wings and jump out of the nest, whether you're ready or not. Because otherwise, you're stuck. Otherwise, you're comfortable. Otherwise, you'll never fly.

xoxo DannDann