Her Wings Were Always There

Try to imagine this. A brand new baby. B-r-a-n-d  n-e-w. Precious.

Her tiny wings are tucked away where you can’t see them.
But they’re there. Something she arrives with.  She doesn’t have to earn them. 

And then life begins shaping her.

She learns what’s safe and what’s not.
What earns approval. What creates tension. What feels good. What doesn’t.

She adapts. We all do.

Over time, layers form around her wings as she learns to survive the world and protect her heart.  Some of us have more layers, others have very few.

She learns to doubt herself. To question. To brace.  To create stories about who she needs to be to stay connected, to stay safe, to stay loved.

Those stories make sense at the time.  They help her survive what she doesn’t yet understand.

Her wings don’t disappear.

But they get buried under all of it.  Layer after layer of protection…until it feels normal.

So normal, she forgets they’re even there.

And then something happens. Might be very subtle.  Could be dramatic.  But it’s undeniable.

A moment that asks much more of her than staying safe or comfortable.
A moment where she can either keep protecting… or start letting something go.

Sometimes it’s pain that cracks things open.
Sometimes it’s a person or a feeling that shakes things up.
Sometimes it’s a quiet decision she makes to change her story when no one is paying attention.

Whatever the path…that’s the moment.

The moment a layer loosens.
Or falls away.
Or breaks apart.

And something real begins to rise.

That’s when her wings appear.

Ali Benjamin and I have been gathering stories like this from women who reached a point where something had to change.

We’re bringing them together in Her Wings Appeared, coming out this summer.

These aren’t polished stories or perfect lives.
They’re real moments…when staying the same is no longer an option.

This is one of them.

The Moment She Stopped Waiting to Feel Safe

Marie always checked the door twice. Not casually like most people, but very intentionally. 

Lock. Turn the handle.
Pause.
Turn it again, just to be sure.                                                                               

At night, she would run through it one more time in her mind.
Front door locked. Back door locked. Windows secure.

Only then could she rest. She called it being responsible.

In the same way she called it normal to ask a few extra questions before making plans.

“What time exactly?”
“Who else is coming?”
“Are we eating before or after?”                                                                                                                                                                                                                “What’s the parking situation?”

Her friends used to laugh.

“Marie needs a full itinerary.”

She laughed too.

But if something changed… if plans shifted with or without warning…She didn’t just feel annoyed. She felt unsettled, like something inside her lost its footing.

And sometimes, she reacted with a sharp comment or a flash of frustration. She couldn’t help herself.

Nothing she couldn’t smooth over later. She was good at that.

Marie was also funny. A natural storyteller.  She could make people feel at ease.

But they learned her edges.

They included her… carefully.   And sometimes, not at all. She noticed. She noticed everything.

At home, things were simpler.

Her dogs followed her from room to room.  Her cat stretched across the couch, thinking it belonged there more than Marie did, and she let it.

Her animals were everything.  Loving. Loyal.  She was the same.

People were harder. She had loved once…really loved. But even then, her mind never fully rested.

What if this doesn’t last?
What if I miss something?

When it ended, it confirmed what she had quietly believed all along.

After that, she always kept one foot out. Careful. Measured. Eventually, she stopped trying. It was safer that way.

Years passed.

She showed up when people needed her.  And they did.

When her mother got sick, Marie was there. Appointments. Long nights. The quiet, exhausting care no one talks about. Loyalty wasn’t something she just said.  It was something she lived.

But when the house grew quiet again…a question surfaced she couldn’t ignore.

Why does my life feel so small?

She didn’t like the answer. Because it wasn’t about circumstance. It was about how tightly she held everything. How guarded she was before anything even had a chance.

So she did something different. Something that felt very scary.

She started looking at herself.  Not just what could go wrong… but how she was living. And it became clear. She wasn’t just careful. She was trying to control uncertainty.

Plans. People. Outcomes. Nothing ever actually made her feel safe. She went to therapy. Enquiring minds had to know. 

When the shift came, it was quiet.

She was sitting at her kitchen table, staring at a dating profile she had opened and closed three times.

Her mind was busy.

What if this is a mistake?
What if I get hurt again?

Her instinct was to close the laptop and wait until she felt more sure. But something in her remembered…and paused.

You’re not looking for certainty. You’re avoiding risk.

That hit. Because it was true.

She had been waiting for a feeling that never came. And wasn’t coming. Her chest was tight. Her hands were unsteady.

And for once, she didn’t try to fix it. She let the fear be there. She took a breath.

Then she typed…shaking and making mistakes.  But she was doing it.

And before she could rethink it…She hit submit.

Nothing in her life changed that night or anytime soon.

But something in her did.

She didn’t wait for reassurance. Didn’t ask for one more opinion.

She moved forward with herself… fear and all.

That was the moment her wings appeared.

Not when everything felt safe. But when she stopped needing it to.

That’s the kind of moment this book holds.

Her Wings Appeared is a collection of stories like this.

We don’t have perfect lives or polished endings.

We each noticed a place where something challenged us in our lives… and we chose to step forward anyway.

You’ll see yourself in some of these stories. You’ll recognize people you love in others. The book will be published this summer.  I’ll keep you posted.

If you want a deeper look into how this idea came together and what’s behind the chapters, we recently recorded a podcast conversation where we talk through the heart of the book.

I’ll share that with you here.

Her Wings Appeared Podcast

More soon.

Diana
Love is ALL there is