I look around me and see a world full of butterflies, some with golden wings, others marked with all the colors of the rainbow. I cannot see my own wings—which feel splendid! But few seem to notice them and so I flutter in solitude.
I also see many who have broken their head and legs through their cocoons, only to carry this unneeded nest into the world of butterflies. They say they don’t need its protection anymore but that they feel safer holding onto it.
Wanting to fly into my full brilliance, I started talking to the most radiant among us. I would listen to their words of inspiration: that we were all golden and rainbows and it was just about removing the dust from our wings to live in our full colorful glory. But when I talked to them privately, their stories were different. Ones of sadness and loneliness. And I wondered if their stories of shining brightly were just made-up tales to make everyone think there is something worth flying for, that life outside the cocoon is so much more. Maybe it was made up for themselves more than for the less glowing.
I came across one butterfly that I had seen only in dreams and thought her just a fiction before until I saw her flying right there in front of me! And I couldn’t believe that a flock didn’t swarm her. But she was alone.
I flew with her that day and by the time the sun was setting and we were standing on a branch, letting the colors of the horizon color our wings, she shared with me that I was the butterfly of her dreams as well and now nothing else mattered to me, not even the stories the Colorful Ones told of perfection.
After several weeks of joyful flying, feeling her by my side even when she was sitting on a flower far away, I started to become aware of some rips in my wings. I couldn’t see them directly but I could feel how the wind coursed through their spaces and knew that this was keeping me from flying in perfection. I talked to some of the other butterflies, even a few of the Colorful Ones, but they had said there is no point in talking about rips in wings and so I didn’t with them, even though I started to see some in their wings as well. How could I come into my own perfection with rips in my wings?
I felt scared and alone and rubbed my wings together, making the signal that my mate and I established, sharing that I needed her to come to me, to comfort me. She sent back the message that she was in a field far away and needed time to herself to figure out her own understanding of perfection.
And for the first time since we flapped our wings together, I felt angry. I needed her to come to me, to tell me that everything was all right, that my wings would heal and that she would always love me, regardless of my flaws.
And as each day passed, her needing to explore this field or fly with this friend, my anger grew, until my wings became a fiery red much different than the color I had shared with her before. And then she returned.
I told her that I was angry, that when I needed her she was off in a field somewhere doing her own exploration, leaving me alone, and turning my wings red. She seemed unable to recognize me, saying that I seemed to be a different butterfly than the one in which she had fallen in love.
And now I felt like no matter what was said to the contrary, that her love was based on me appearing a certain way, supporting her need for exploration in fields far away, even when I voiced that I needed her with me more than she was allowing. Funny enough, she felt the same way, that my love for her was based on her flying on command to wherever location I demanded.
And now her wings changed a different color and I was having trouble recognizing the butterfly which I had dreamt of, with which I had already flown higher than I had been with any other butterfly, and once again I felt alone, that even though we were flying together now, neither one of us was the butterfly we had wanted to be, the one whose wings were open and it didn’t matter what color or what kind of tears were present. Now we were both painfully aware that my wings were flawed and her image of me was also torn as well as a portion in my chest that seemed to make flight so enjoyable for me.
But when her wings would brush against mine, whether by accident or on purpose, the red in my wings started to fade and my natural color started to return. But it seemed that the beauty of our soaring flights together were covered with the ugliness of what appeared unappealing, that our eyes could no longer see the heights we could fly together but instead stayed fixed on an immediate past that I wished was as dead as my life in the cocoon. And soon she told me that she no longer wanted to fly with me.
So now I am flying on my own, wishing that my love was flying by my side or at least could give me enough attention to come mend my wings when all they need is the presence of her care. But my needs seem just a distraction to her exploring her own flowers and somehow both exploration and mending are impossible. And now my wings don’t seem to flap with the same enjoyment that flying with her provided.
I’ve learned also that no butterfly wants to talk about torn wings. That, like the Colorful Ones, this only reminds them of where they are and not what they seek to be.