Letting Go

A rapid fluttering of delicate wings, like the drizzling remnants of a tropical storm, beat in tandem with the ever-changing pace of my heart.

As a child no older than seven, I reveled in the beauty of nature. I lived in awe at her strength to force towering evergreens to their knees, as well as her kindness to hatch new life in place of the old. For so long, I believed nature to be this constant cycle of life and death, give and take. But there is so much more to life that I failed to see at my young age, and yet, I have been a witness to it all along: within life there is change. 

I was young, too young to comprehend, when I had the privilege of bearing witness to nature’s greatest wonder. From miniscule worms in a cup to plump undulating caterpillars, I raised a brood of monarchs. I spent hours staring into their netted confinement, fascinated by their unwavering devotion to eat and grow and grow. Out of curiosity I would reach into their cage and lightly run my fingers along their velvet bodies, only to be reminded of their fragility as they wiggled away in distress. I wasn’t allowed to open their cage after that.

In the blink of an eye, a cluster of gold accented cocoons lining the roof of the cage had replaced the squirming figures of white, black, and yellow. And before I could even utter a word of surprise at this development, the cage became a whirlwind of oranges and blacks. The velvet caterpillars that once labored to crawl across the cage’s expanse, now rode effortlessly on velvet wings. Their diet of milkweed and leaves was now that of the sweetest nectar. Their lives, once bound to the ground, now has the potential to be one with the clouds and reach among the stars.

Their evolution was beautiful, but it also meant letting go. Letting go of what once was is the epitome of change, and it is the hardest to accept. Seven year old me shed tears and threw a fit at the mere concept of it all. The unfairness. The fear of losing something precious to my naïve, unscarred heart. The desire to hold on, dreading the unknown. But as I turned my tearstained face to the sky, I smiled. For the fluttering of butterflies had never looked more beautiful than in that moment, where they ascended into freedom’s embrace.

Change, no matter how fleeting, can linger in a heart that refuses to let go. Refuses to accept. A butterfly that yearns for their life as a caterpillar, will never know their true purpose is to fly.