Becoming

There comes a day when the nest is no longer enough.

Not because it isn't safe. Not because it isn't home. But because something inside the fledgling begins pulling harder than the comfort of staying put. The branch that once felt impossibly high starts to feel small. The horizon starts whispering.

I watched this young eagle for a long time. Wings not quite mastered. Confidence not quite earned. Standing on the edge between what it knows and what it doesn't. It's a place every one of us visits sooner or later.

We like to think courage looks like certainty. Most of the time it doesn't. Most of the time it looks exactly like this: awkward, uncertain, exposed, and one strong gust of wind away from finding out what you're capable of.

Every eagle you've ever seen soaring above mountains began here—wondering if the air would hold it.

So did we.