Stairs and Mountains

Midnight musings of yours truly...

Have you ever just walked up a flight of stairs while looking up? Stairs that were creaky and unreliable, wherein you can see the ground below because the steps aren’t connected to each other? Analogy of the day: stairs.

 

Today I was walking up two flights of stairs that connect to a bridge which crosses a wide highway. The steps were wet and uneven, but when I looked up I saw the sun. Orange against an engulfing blue. Try it one day, walking up stairs while looking as high as you can. It’s similar to standing at the edge of an elevated place, like a cliff or a building (not that anyone in their right mind would do so in the first place) with nothing to hold on to. And you can just slightly feel gravity tickling your limbs, making them feel unbalanced, weak and uncertain. Vertigo kicks in as though you were already falling, but you’re not. You’re just afraid of the idea. And that’s what life’s about, really. Everyone has something to fear, but that fear is deceiving. We as human beings tend to overthink something, making it as unreal as a deed unfinished. So close yet so far, fear distorts reality to make it worse than it really is. When we walk up a flight of stairs, we usually look down and make sure of our steps. We want to see where we’re going and feel steady about it. What happens then is we lose sight of the bigger picture.

 

Forgive me for my random musings. I walk those stairs every day, and nearly each time, I see the sunset at the top of the bridge. Or at night, I see stars glowing above the horizon of rooftops and buildings. It’s like looking into the future after an exhausting day at school. To get home, I must climb the stairs and cross the bridge over and past the cars in perpetual rush hour. Each steps turn every breathe I take a little more haggard and strained. Limbs begin to protest and beg for an alternative way to get to the other side. It doesn’t get any easier, because the closer you are the greater the challenge. But what I see up above draws me closer, and once I’ve reached the top I exhale a fathomable sigh of relief, and suddenly, the goal is now eye-level, merely a few long strides away...

 

Life doesn’t come with flying glass elevators that take you anywhere you wish with a press of a button. Oops, wrong metaphor. Life doesn’t come with escalators. From the infamous poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” I was having a blue day yesterday; I guess it was homesickness to the max. I ended up silently, heart wrenchingly sobbing in my dorm bathroom. Usually I hate myself for crying because it just. Makes me feel weak. I know for a fact that crying over something doesn’t make the situation any better, but I also know that sometimes crying can be the best way to relieve pain or worry. Being in college is by far the best experience of my life, aside from my recent trip to Evropa. It definitely tests your limits; challenges you as a person in a way that forces you figure out how far you can go, and what you can do. It forces you to be no one but yourself, and to be the best at it; to face fears and do things to meet the expectations of college level academe standards. That wasn’t exactly what made me break yesterday, but it must have been the overwhelming workload, mixed with homesickness and anxiety. I was frustrated because, just when I thought I was done with something--after working so long and hard to complete a plethora of consecutive midterms and long tests and assignments, another one pops up. I finish one thing and immediately, or even before I’m finished, I’m given another. It does not stop, and that’s the most frustrating part of all. It’s like doing your best at something only to realize that it’s not enough. Doing your best and being constant at it isn’t impossible, but it sure is damn hard when you’re in another country all alone with not a single familiar soul to hug or talk to. No one that speaks my language, anyway.

 

Well, God must have heard me somehow because after I had stopped crying I received some encouraging messages from a new friend at school, and my mom sent me one of those pictures that depict two people digging underground. One is a few feet behind but continues to dig away, while the other gave up just inches to finishing and reaching the treasure. Then I stumbled upon a blog that someone in my org wrote two years ago. It was his philosophy reflection paper, and he talks about life being compared to a mountain. He compares his entire reflection to Miley Cyrus’s song The Climb. And as overdone as it is, I’m going to follow him and quote the song because I like it and don’t judge me. :) Second analogy of the day: mountains.

"I can almost see it. That dream I’m dreaming, but there’s a voice inside my head saying ‘you’ll never reach it.’ Every step I’m taking; every move I make feels lost with no direction. My faith is shaking, but I--I got to keep trying. Gotta keep me head held high. There’s always gonna be another mountain. I’m always gonna wanna make it move. Always gonna be an uphill battle. Sometimes I’m gonna have to lose. Ain’t about how fast I get there. Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side. It’s the climb.”

No need to sing the song, or listen to the music. The words itself, read aloud or silently to oneself depict life as a journey (as well as my own struggles) perfectly. Mountains are not going to move for anyone. They are symbolic of something permanent and larger than we are, like the obstacles that life will throw us. We look up from the bottom and feel exhausted with the prospect of climbing a mountain--if you, dear reader, have ever tried--or a flight of stairs. Then imagine that you start climbing, and all your limbs beg you to stop. You think that you can’t finish, or that you can’t finish on your own? What if the stone you hold on to for support breaks away and you fall and hurt yourself, ending up having to start all over again? What if a storm passes by and you get sick, and again, fall and start over? What if a giant tree is in the way and you can’t climb over it? And what if an avalanche occurs and you’re forced to jump out of the way--back to the bottom of that mountain? My answer to you: yes you can, get back up again, get back up again, climb around it, and get back up again.

 

One last thing I’d like to share before ending this blog entry. You may have read this somewhere before, but I’m posting it as something for you to think about: Failed in business, age 22. Ran for legislature, age 23. Again failed in business, age 24. Elected to legislature, age 25. Sweetheart died, age 26. Had a nervous breakdown, age 27. Defeated for Speaker, age 29. Defeated for Elector, age 31. Defeated for Congress, age 34. Elected to Congress, age 37. Defeated for Congress, age 39. Defeated for Senate, age 46. Defeated for Vice President, age 47. Defeated for Senate, age 49.

 

Elected President of the United States, age 51.

 

That’s the record of Abraham Lincoln.

 

This man climbed some set of stairs, huh? He took 27 years to get to the top. Heck, he climbed one of the tallest mountains there is, figuratively speaking, and now the world will remember his name forever. I remember my NFL (National Forensic League) coach comparing achievements in school to a race. We may not all finish and reach our dreams on time or as soon as we initially planned, but we will all finish the race. I realized then that it’s not about finishing quickly, or winning something before someone else gets to it first. Another metaphor my former English teacher once taught me: when we die, and we have our tombstones engraved with the year we were born to the year we died, people won’t care about those numbers; they’ll care about the dash, the in-between. What we did while we were living--if we were living. That includes mistakes and all, rain and sunshine, good days and bad days. In my journal for my Filipino class, I was required to write about a moment in my life that I wanted to go back to or fast forward to, and what I would do with this second chance or sneak peak in life. Instead of writing about a specific moment, I wrote about why I preferred neither. Sure, it’d be wonderful to go to that one moment in the future when you’re the happiest. Who wouldn’t want to feel a special moment twice? It’s like reading your favorite book for the first time, again. But what happens to the dash? When that moment is over, it becomes a memory, not an experience, because one has chosen to skip life. The same goes for redoing mistakes and getting a second chance to fix the past. You can’t exactly walk down the stairs without moving forward. Who would you be without those mistakes? Isn’t life all about the little things? The small step to the top of the bridge? Every heave and pull up the mountain? “I may not know it, but these are the moments that I’m gonna remember most, and just gotta keep going."

 

No matter how many times we fall, there’s nowhere to go but up. I believe that if God didn’t exist, or if He chose not to help us whether or not we asked for His help, our daily flights of stairs would become solid, flat walls; and our mountains would become narrow plateaus--impossible to climb. With Him, anything is possible.

 

I’m not saying people should look up when they climb stairs and risk falling on their backs. Goodness, no. I’m saying that taking life’s pains and discomforts doesn’t come unrewarded. Look forward, not back, unless that’s where you want to be. Don’t let go of your dreams just because they’re sky high. You--you’re a bright star, twinkling with life and shining as bright as can be. You have the entire world in front of you, looking up with pride; not wishing to be among those who climbed their mountains and did not fall, but rather to be with those who climbed their mountains, fell, climbed up again, and landed among the stars.

 

 

 

-©Lucy Joan 2012

Author's Note

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