Uphill, uphill

Life is an uphill battle. 

Or so I've been told.

I don't even remember the first time I actually heard that expression. Those words may be lyrics from a song, or maybe just an expression popularized by Pop Culture. I really couldn't tell you. But in any case, for most of my life, that warning was never really taken seriously. Instead, it hung out in a stupid box that I constructed using old cheese and corn, clumped and tangled together with the other Shoot for the Moon; even if you miss you'll land among the stars and Life is not about the number of breaths you took, but the number of moments that took your breath away crap. (I actually just gagged a little while typing those out). I figured that if I wasn't going to contemplate those words of wisdom, then maybe I could just put them together and then they could contemplate each other.

But lately, I've been thinking about this one. Mostly because lately, the truth of this one has dawned on me. It wasn't a welcomed dawn, either. It didn't feel anything like a warm, gentle glow of morning slowly rising into the cool sky, spreading its rays across my face as the peaceful symphony of the chirping birds began its chorus. (Ugh). No, it actually felt like being woken up by getting slapped across the face and wet willy'ed at the same time by someone you find annoying in your bedroom- who you did not invite into, by the way- and now you're pissed because things were so much less crappy when you were still sleeping. Yeah, picture that.

And then, after the terrible awakening, it's like you go downstairs to the kitchen to make yourself some french toast and coffee and while you're sitting there gnawing away at your burnt bread crust, suddenly your eyes get all wide and you smack both hands onto the table and you're like, "OH SHOOT LIFE IS AN UPHILL BATTLE!"  

And then, suddenly, you realize it and you can't un-realize it. You start thinking about all the ways that that expression has proven itself to be true in your life thus far. You're thinking about that one time you worked out vigorously and ate only fresh fruits and vegetables for a three-week stretch, and then on the twenty second day of the month, you decided to sit on the couch and read a book (since your calves were super sore from your daily treadmill routine) and eat like, six french fries (since your stomach was looking nicely concave from the starvation), and then you ruined everything. You woke up the next day with a dozen pimples and a beer gut, even though you didn't even drink any beer!

And then, you're thinking about how you were in college and you got like pretty much straight-A's in all of your classes, but no one would ever think that since your GPA was permanently made ugly by the one calculus class you took your first semester of freshman year (and you're also thinking at this point that they should probably stop letting freshmen take that class).

You look down at your breakfast and push it aside; you've lost your appetite. You think on how quickly an athlete can fall out of shape, or how quickly a relationship can be destroyed. You imagine all the ways that life demands an uphill crawl, and how far you can fall the moment you let up. There is no time for rest. You work hard, always, day after day in hopes that you can continue pulling against gravity the next day. One hand in front of the other, one foot after the other. The daily grind demands the rhythm of right, left, right. And now you are aware that at any given moment, your uphill battle can be disrupted or completely brought to ruin. If you climb carefully, you can be healthy for years. But one swift accident can mean that you'll be climbing the rest of your days without any legs. Your hard, meticulous work over a period of years may result in an impressive portfolio, but one mistake is the low cost of being jobless and blacklisted. You finally understand how uphill affects you; it means that your movements always require intentional effort, and there will be times when it feels like you're being pushed backwards.

So, you wonder to yourself, what does this leave us with?

Well, I certainly can't tell you. But maybe I can tickle you.

So maybe life is an uphill battle. But maybe it doesn't have to be one we're guaranteed to lose. Maybe all your hard work and perseverance isn't worth it; maybe it is. Maybe you have to fight to keep fighting to find out. Maybe knowing this means you should take more risks, and have more fun. Maybe it means nothing, changes nothing. Maybe it just means that the next time you step on the scale after a weekend of  "eating terribly," you won't be so upset because you know that you'll get to try this all over again.

Up and up and up we go.

Soldier on,
bcl.