Learning to fly...

Birds fall from the window ledge above mine.
Then they flap their wings at the last second.
I said birds fall from the window ledge above mine.
Then they flap their wings at the last second.
But unless I get up,
Walk across the room
And peer down below,
I won't see their last second curves
Toward a, a horizontal flight.
All these birds just falling from the ledge like stones.

Now due to a construct in my mind
That makes their falling and their flight
Symbolic of my entire existence,
It becomes important for me
To get up and see
Their last second curves toward flight.
..lyrics taken from .Mr. Mastodon Farm by Cake

Flying...someone once told me that this whole graduate school 'process' is similar to flying. People can only help you so far. You grow to a point where you start to think or believe or realize that maybe you can actually fly off that ledge. They can encourage you up to that ledge where you have to trust that you have the wings to fly.

For me right now, I feel like I have lept off the ledge and i'm in a free fall stage prior to actually flying. I've jumped and I see where i'm headed....AKKKKKKKKDOWN...and i'm flapping those wings. Somewhere along the way I believed enough that I could fly off that ledge, but right now I am not *actually* flying yet...i am in the free fall stage of the jump where my heart has sunk to the pit of my stomach, and I feel like I am going to throw up, I am flapping my little wings as hard as I can and I am starting to wonder when these 'wings' are going to actually work. When I get outside my brain for a second I can rationalize that will work at some point, but being in that free fall stage of the flight i'm having that seed of doubt and I'm starting to wonder if that was such a good idea to throw myself off that ledge back there. But the reality is it is too late to do anything else but fly.

Therefore I will learn to fly.