Regarding Flying in that poem

I'm sitting in bed eating blueberry almond oatmeal and drinking coffee. After slashdotmad (who I am so glad is back blogging) requested more poetry I thought I would at the very least get on the on-ramp by reflecting on what it was like to start flying, aka come out to family and friends etc. This isn't a poem just a mini-reflection on flying.

Flying, it is/was exhilarating. In many ways what I always wanted. In retrospect, when I look back on this year I'm a bit stunned by the fact that I left the cocoon, got off the ground, and showed my colored wings. I was adult enough to fly before I think. Metephorically I had wings. I just was too terrified. Cocoons can wrap you up so tight you become paralyzed and I think my fear of becoming paralyzed for the rest of my life, outweighed my fear of flying (all this metaphorically of course).

I was still afraid that I would fly up too far or too fast and leave all my friends behind. Or that the sky would be so open I would be blown anywhere and get lost. Or I feared that people would try and shoot me out of the sky. I think I'm doing a good job flying next to solid things like trees and bushes and ledges. I've found other "flyers" of color. And I've found places to land and rest when I am tired and unsure.

I can't take care of other people's fears that I am flying. I know it's scary for them. It's a little scary for me too. But not because of my wings, I've always had them. Instead because I used to have about an inch of cocoon to move in and now I have the whole sky.

How does a person make such a radically huge change in their life? All I know is for me one day I was just done with the hiding and the cocoon. Done with spending all my time trying to fix something in me that didn't need to be fixed. I just knew, perhaps like the butterfly that I was finally strong enough to handle the judgement of the sky.