Consider the Butterfly

I love butterflies!

Hiya, Friends!  How's your week going?  I know it's only Tuesday, so it's a little hard to tell, but it's still easy enough to get a gauge on how the week's feeling like it's shaping up for ya.  And if it feels like it's takin' a left turn, it's still early enough to whip around the block and get back on track for a great week, don't you think?

Every day is a new chance to have a great day!

I think about that a lot, Friends, about the transformative power of goin' to bed at night and wakin' up in the morning.

That's why I have a butterfly theme in my bedroom.  My room's been all about butterflies ever since I can remember.  When I first came home from the hospital, I had this mobile I could watch, hanging over my crib, and it had butterflies on it.  My sheets and comforter have butterflies on them.  I have a rug that's a purple butterfly-shaped rug.

Butterflies are very important to me.

You see, butterflies don't start life out as butterflies.  You know this, Big People, and so do I.  They start out as caterpillars.  Little worm-lookin' things that can't fly.  Some caterpillars are cute enough.  I think we say that, because caterpillars are baby butterflies, and ya kinda hafta say babies are cute, even when you're like 'whaaaaaaaaaaaat?'  You still hafta smile and say the baby's cute.  Because all babies are cute. 

Moving right along.  We'll just agree that some caterpillars are actually cute, and some caterpillars are cute because they're caterpillars.

Butterflies, though.  Butterflies are beautiful.  Butterflies have gossamer wings, Friends.  And seein' one just makes your spirits lift a little bit. 

Thing of it is, I'm not so sure that while that 'Bless-your-heart Cute' caterpillar always knows it's gonna grow up to be a butterfly.  You know what I'm sayin', Friends?  I think it thinks it might stay a caterpillar forever.  It gets used to crawling around on the leaves, seeing the world from down on the ground.  It isn't a bad life, especially if that's all you know.  I mean, you might yearn for more and wish for more, but not be all that discontent in your present circumstances, if they're all you've ever known, and if you're not all that sure how to go about changing them.

And then that little caterpillar gets a switch flipped in it.  Nature has a way of doing things like that.  Just coming along, flipping that switch, and suddenly the same-old, same-old, but comfortable thing gets all shooken up.  From the caterpillar's point of view, it's easy to feel like the whole world is coming to an end.

Have ya ever seen a really weird-lookin' baby?

Well, wouldn't it?  Here you've been, going around one way your whole life, and the next day, you're crawling into a cocoon.  You don't know why you go in there, if you're a caterpillar.  You just know you're going in there.  It's what you do.  So you say good-bye to all your little caterpillar friends.  You bid farewell to the ladybugs and spiders and honeybees and crawl into that cocoon. 

I wonder if caterpillars cry.  I think I would, right then.  I mean, things look pretty grim.  They're crawling into this thing and they don't know why.  It's gonna be lights out soon!

Imagine the despair!

And they go to sleep for a little while. A coupla weeks.  Not very long to us, but a long time for the caterpillar.  And then finally, finally, finally, Nature comes along again and flips another switch, and up wakes that caterpillar, except something's different now, and it stretches and finds out it has WINGS!  GOSSAMER WINGS!  WOW! 

Here that little caterpillar thought that everything was over for it, and it went to bed, closed its eyes, and when it woke up, it was a BUTTERFLY!  I can only imagine what it must feel like for that new butterfly to see the light shining through its wings for the first time!  I bet it's something!

We can learn a lot from caterpillars'n'butterflies!

For us people, we don't have that dramatic a transformation in such a short amount of time, generally.  Usually, our changes are more gradual.  We change a little bit every day.  But one thing we get to do every single day is turn out the lights, crawl into a nicey warm bed, and go to sleep.  Sometimes, I sure do feel like a caterpillar when I got go bed at night.  Sometimes at bedtime, things around me seem pretty grim.  I DO cry.  I kick and scream and try to bargain with Mommy and Daddy to let me stay up just a little longer, and they still put me in my toddler bed, cover me up, give me kisses, and tell me they'll see me in the morning, and everything will look better to me then.  I'll feel better in the morning.

I try to fight that every single night, Friends.  But I do get to sleep, and then when I wake up in the morning and see the light shining through my curtains in my room like light shining through butterfly-wings, everything DOES seem better.  I DO feel like a butterfly.

That's why butterflies are so important to me, Friends.  That's why they're the first things I see in the morning and the last things I see at night.  They inspire me.  They remind me that no matter what happened today, tomorrow's a new day.

I love ya lots, Friends!  I'll see you tomorrow!  Muah!