Sally stretched her arms and legs out under the cozy weight of her blankets. The sun was making its way through the morning fog and it felt good. Just the way she wanted to begin the day. Another day. A softness came over her. A radiant zest for life giving her a peaceful and inviting glow. Sally was happy. Ready for the world. All she needed was a little extra strength, mostly to wrangle her patience and lack thereof.
Sally felt like she could take on the world. She knew she could. She also knew that she shouldn’t. That’s where the need for patience came in. Holding back was hard. It wasn’t something she was accustomed to. Sally needed to rest. She needed to nourish her body while it healed. She needed to find a way to convince herself that by taking it easy she would be accomplishing more than she would by climbing Mt. Everest. The goal, so she’d been told, was to understand what she could do and then cut that in half. That restricted part of moving forward on her journey, the being still, was something that Sally did not at all care for. It was a foreign concept and a frustrating one.
Sally knew that all she needed to end the uninvited chapter in her life was a brand new set of wings so she simply wanted to get up and go out and get them. If only everyone and everything in her way would just move so that she could… but there were so many obstacles.
Sally had been sick. She understood that, but it was absolutely a, “had been.” Past tense. The culprit was gone. The problem was that she was still being treated, “just in case.” Just in case they missed something. Just in case there was something microscopic that no one could see. Just in case. Just in case. Just in case. Every test under the sun had suggested the doctors hadn’t missed anything, but still she was going through the treatments just in case. Sally understood that it was a process. She knew that the course of action her doctors had her on was exactly what she needed, but treatments or not, Sally still wanted her new wings and she didn’t want to wait. The waiting was excruciating. The delegating. The letting go. The patience... The expectance of patience just infuriated her primarily because it all made so much sense. It made so much sense that she wanted to scream. How could something so treatable that made so much sense still be happening?
With the impatience pumping through the surface of her subconscious and without a thought of the obstacles, Sally rolled out of bed and started her day; just as she started every other day; with a mind full of plans that her body couldn’t possibly deliver in a twenty-four hour period, but she never thought twice about it. Sally always got out of bed set to do things and always aimed to get those things done. She would keep going on with life and keep climbing that mountain until she found her brand new set of wings. She would persist through each day with a heart full of hope. She would become a bit annoyed with all of those things in her way and then she’d go to sleep and start the next day just the same way all over again.
Sally would go and go until she found her way... and as she continued there would be one thing that she would come to realize and forget daily as the sun rose and set. The one thing Sally knew, but didn’t necessarily quite fully realize, was that Joe had been out all over town looking after her wings. The wings were there, they simply were not yet completed. Sally was alone in her battle, but she was by no means alone. Joe was there. Checking on her wings. Overseeing that they were crafted perfectly. Making sure they were right. Each feather was being fashioned by hand and added to the wings with the greatest of care by hundreds of people. The structure was being balanced. The fit fine-tuned. The ingredients were endless and the work was constant. The wings were made of an ever so slight bit of physical materials, the primary ingredients including things like strength, love, beauty, lasting power… The list went on and on and on.
Sally’s wings were in fact coming, but their assembly was taking more focus, love and dedication than she could possibly understand. It was common for a women embarking on her journey as an angel not to realize what went into the crafting of her wings. Why they took so long to make. And why she had to bare a trek through hell to get them. Hell was part of the journey. So was not understanding it how wings were made. Joe knew that. Joe knew and so through all of Sally’s ups and downs Joe stayed steady and loved her just the same. And Sally got up each morning set to take on the world, only getting half way through her goals until finally one day they had arrived. There was no more need to look. Sally had woken up to find her wings were already there. The angel had come through while she was sleeping and all that Sally had to do was fly.
THE BEGINNING
Inspired by Joe Purdy’s song Brand New Set of Wings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWpFPwa8CRwawgryphon©
