Building Wings
A blue kite got stuck in a tree, I got up and set it free.
Soaring high up to the sky, like a butterfly.
Up and up and up and up, the wind is blowing and the kite is floating.
I wish I was up there in the sky, I wish I was flapping my wings up there.
Cause it’s floating so high, like a butterfly, but I’m still just down on the tree, thinking it’s me.
I wrote that poem when I was 8. It was the first thing I ever wrote, but it wasn’t the last. My journey from that 2nd grade classroom to 2022 is one I decided weeks ago I wanted to tell you about. I wrote most of it in November, then in late December I set it aside in a queue of mostly finished pieces. What I didn't realize was that the day this post would make it to the top of list, would be January 30th, my birthday. Call it kismet, that on a day when we naturally look back on what we've done and what we hope to do going forward, I was meant to share this piece of myself with you. So here it goes…
As I celebrate 36 years and take stock of my life, I see a singular thread that has weaved its way into every job, every phase, every year of my life: the passion to write and inspire other people with words. It has grown in me for 28 years, since I wrote those first simple words about a little blue kite. At the center of it… a dream to publish a book. But for so many years I never even tried to do it.
Like so many other things in my life I would see it but never go after it. I would see someone else do something like run a marathon and think wow, I would love to do that, but I can’t. That’s impossible for me. It was like I was looking up at that kite and wishing it was me but all I would ever do was wish…
Then, 4 years ago this March, something in me woke up and I realized if I wanted to make it happen I needed to stop wishing and I needed to get off my tree and start building myself some wings. So I did.
When I first started writing, I didn't know what my book would be about. I just wrote. The first 6 months it was just for me. Then, I started the blog “Mourning Run” that was mostly about grieving the loss of my brother. Two years into that, I realized that most of my posts weren't about grief anymore, but rather about achieving my goals and encouraging others to do the same. So that's what I chose to make my book about. About taking these things we wish for, our goals, our dreams, our bucket list items, and building a path to them.
I’m telling you this today because one of the topics I cover is the need for community. When we have big dreams like this, we are not meant to do them alone. Studies show that if we want to change habits, if we want to form better behaviors, we need other people. We need accountability and we need support which is why - as a birthday present to myself - I'm adding a new short section to the bottom of my Sunday Starter that will include Book updates. It will be rough and unpolished, as most things we’re working on are, but most importantly it will be a space for me, and for you if you choose, to stick with the goals we set for ourselves. This will hopefully keep me accountable to getting the second draft done, and also invite you into what I’m doing, because the real joy of seeing a lifelong goal achieved is getting to share it with others.
