THE UPHILL CLIMB
No wonder my every footstep feels so heavy… Even the lightest steps are heavy in hindsight. For I am never descending–yet always rising–yet always climbing, even when I am asleep, I climb. And I can never go back, not even one step down. I must always rise, even when I fall. In fact, it may be my moments of collapse when I rise more highly than most. If I try, I climb. If I try not, I climb. It’s no wonder I’m often so tired.
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One day, soon perhaps, I will die upon the mountain which I do climb. It is the same mountain where you are too and where we all struggle. I’ll die, and over time no mark of my passage will remain. Very soon, in fact, my time here and my way up will disappear. All that will remain is what is wild, and much order, and much chaos, and maybe ample time for all. You too, ample time for your all. Maybe. Just maybe.
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The upward ground
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"...and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward!"
-Henry David Thoreau
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I accept life as hard. I accept the need to rise early. I accept my difficult work. I accept circumstance which are hard for the fact of change. And I accept my things must break, and that I am broken, too— And though I wish none of these for their own sake, and I desire no such life for another, I accept this way to go, and these facts of being—and maybe much worse—for their own sake, and the simple fact of being, and the opportunity to climb.
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Picking among boulders
Every day of my life
Following always
The upward ground—
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And I will not complain, or even speak my pain. Though I will seek relief where I can: by reading good words, and in rest where I can, and in a good and simple meal, and in making my body clean with water and soap, and in going to bed early—to sleep deep through the night, and start again early next day, lifting, and moving and pressing forward and upward and on.
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And I will climb knowing I've nowhere to go. Finishing someday no better than where I'd begun. But still better for the journey. Better for the upward climb.