The Mountain

The Drummer took me on a hike last week.  My quads are still in pain.

He has been going on this hike in Burbank that's mostly incline.  Apparently, you climb 2700 feet during the course of the hike.  It sounded all right.  I am in decent shape.  Well, I haven't been to the gym much lately.  But I'm not fat.  I ran a marathon!  Okay, that was five years ago.  But still!

So we drive up to the park where we need to start the hike.  He keeps pointing out how high up we have to climb.  I feel like I might kill him.

We start the hike.  It's tough, but fine.  We go higher and higher.  I'm happy whenever there's a place where the road levels off.  There aren't that many.  Then we reach a place where there are a lot of switchbacks.  I have to take several breaks.  On each one, The Drummer has to point out how far we've come.  I don't want to look behind me.  I want to look in front of me.  I take my break and continue forward.  The breaks become more frequent.  I don't know if I can do it.  If it's this steep coming up, I can only imagine how it's going to feel going down with gravity pulling me forward.  I try not to think about it too much.  But then, as it gets more painful.  And I blurt out:

"I am not very happy right now!"

The boyfriend thinks this is endearing.  I just want to push him off the mountain.  But I keep going.  And on our last break, we both look at the city.

"Look how far we've come," he says.

I'm trying to catch my breath.

"This is like a metaphor for life.  Just when you're about to achieve your goal, you're about to quit."

I think about that as I'm looking down at LA.  There are those moments in my life where I got so close to something that I quit before realizing how hard it was.  And I didn't want to do that.  The Drummer kept trying to remind me how accomplished I would feel when I was done.  I didn't want to hear it.  But I kept moving and suddenly, we were at the top.  We had made it.

And as I looked out, he was right.  The sense of accomplishment took all of that insecurity away.  Now I know there's yet another thing I can do if I set my mind to it.  I've climbed the mountain.  And the next time I climb it, it will be easier.  I will know what to expect.  And now I know that I can make it to the top of the mountain and reflect back on my journey.  I won't quit.