In the Climb
Have you ever had a mountain top experience? You know the kind where you arrive at the place you’ve worked to get to, and for the first time in days or weeks or months or years, you can finally set down your pack and catch your breath and look at all of it. In your lungs and your heart you breathe in oxygen and awe and gratitude.
I love those moments. I’m not in one now. I’m in the climb.
Now, I’m no mountaineer, but I’ve summited enough peaks to know what it’s like to hike up a mountain. In the beginning there is promise and nerves and hope. In the early hours or days there is the commitment to keep walking, to keep stepping one foot after another. You notice the beautiful things along the way – the late summer flowers peeking up through the grass, the sound of a brook you can’t see, the wind moving birch trees overhead.
You begin to feel the strain of your muscles and bones, and you take breaks but ultimately you tell yourself to get up, to throw the pack on that’s starting to chafe, and keep walking.
Time passes. You’ve enjoyed so much of the journey, but you still long for the mountaintop.
And eventually, you are high enough to have seen most of the trail. You have enjoyed the forest for its beauty, but the fatigue is setting in. You know that beyond the trees the mountaintop is close, but you also know there is so much left to do before you stand on the peak.
This is the climb.
This is when the hike up the mountain no longer feels like a hike. It’s a challenge. This is the part where people give up. This is the part where you can not deny and can only embrace the aches and pains of your body, where you’re the most tired, and where, if there are still flowers growing on the trail, you are missing them because you are focused, telling yourself, “Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Almost there. Step. Step. Step.”
This week, on this massive book project, I’m in the climb. The presale is almost here. There is some big, big work to do yet. My book team is working with me to put the final pieces together to put this book into presale and onto the final editing stage.
At the same time, my actual daytime job doesn’t slow down. I’m a full-time parent. The other parts of my life continue as surely as the sunrise.
And I am showing up. Why?
Because I have a dream. “Step.”
Because I promised myself I would do this. “Step.”
Because there are young gay kids out there who need to know that they can build a beautiful life. “Step.”
Because you are here, and you believe in me. “Step.”
Because I believe in me. “Step.”
Because when this is over, I’ll have done the thing I wanted most – to put my story in your hands, for you to read it, for you to know.
“Step. Step. Step. Almost there. Step. Step…”
I know you’re cheering me on. April 10th is a big day. You can preorder my book in just two and a half weeks. I can’t wait to be there on that particular day with you. That will be one great mountaintop.
