Why do I keep going up that hill? Why do I try again every day, when I know I will fall? Hard. Possibly harder than yesterday or the day before that. Why don’t I just stop hurting myself, go home, and enjoy what little I do have? I may never reach my goal. So few do. Many fool themselves into thinking they did or will, but never do. I've met so few who even know what they climb for, what it means to fly.
Perhaps they are just tired. Perhaps they just want something new. Perhaps they feel they are strong enough, and worked hard enough, to be entitled to it. Entitlement, ha. Entitled from who and why? Don’t we have to go up that hill? Don’t we have to take that leap?
And accept the fall.
It’s not as if I never tried staying home. I tried it once. It felt so peaceful, so real, so right…yet all so fake. So worthless. I felt every scale on my body, every scale furnaced from years of pain and falling, all of them, betray me. It burned, it ached, it gnawed at the very center of my being, making my entire body shake with a hellacious anger that an entire day was lost, with everyone smiling at me, that they, at least, tried to go up the hill, even if they did not know what was at stake. I never wanted to do it again, for it would fill me with the upmost regret and a form of lethargy that I cannot accept.
I often ask how all those around me cannot see what they are climbing for. Why do they insist on being happy after they fall everyday? Do they even know what it feels like? Maybe I don’t know myself, but I know I’m reaching for something. Maybe they want something different than me. I can’t ask them what they want because they often don’t know. No one ever does. I hate it when they keep cheering me on, saying that I will reach it someday, about how good it will feel, but I have yet to meet anyone who has ever done it. It’s condescending, arrogant, and delusional. I can’t blame them, though. It helps them get ready for the next day, even if it doesn’t help those with scales.
I often ask if it is selfish of me to want something so trivial and get frustrated and depressed when I fall. But how much of a request is it really? To go up the hill and, just once, hover, perhaps slowly glide to the ground, for just a second. To feel the air rush past my scales, to breathe that sweet relief, and to not hear the ground as the air fill my ears. The moment, supposedly, when I should feel most proud and most happy.
However, I don’t want pride or happiness. I felt both of those things, and while they are good, they aren't what I had in mind, they aren't what I’m missing. At least, I think I felt those things. No, what I want is something that really doesn't have a word to it. I know it seems that I just don’t want to or can’t define the feeling myself, but that’s because I don’t know if it, the feeling, exists. I don’t know if anybody has found it, and if they had, people may have not listened or really understood. There is no word, no meaning, and no sensation because there might not be one.
Sometimes I feel like I just build myself everyday, get a feeling like I’m going to actually do it, be rid of the dread, but I just fall again. Sometimes I feel my dream is dumb. Childish really. Mostly because I know a few children that have the same dreams. I said that most don’t know what is at stake, but I know two. The younger one puts on a brave face and tries to build herself everyday, just like me, but, unlike her friends who just can’t see why they climb the hill, I know. Her head is just a tad lower, shoulders a bit slouched, and her smile flickers on and off, even if she has years and years to get stronger. The older one is older than me actually. She tries to help others get ready for the next day by showing the fall doesn't have to be the end of the day, but I know better. Even if she has shown just a portion of what the fall has done to her, I can see through her scales and her huge grin. Helping others is both for them and for herself. She doesn't do this because she is selfish, but because she knows she can help others forget the pain for a second and not doing so, not going up the hill her way, would make both her and other’s scales burn. It’s funny how the younger one, the older one, and I are all know about the hill, yet we do it all differently. I know I will live longer than anyone else, my scales won’t let me stop going up the hill even after that.
Some say that they don’t need to reach the goal at the top of the hill, that there are enough things to keep us going. Family, friendship, and love. Those are some of the most used. All related, yet different in many respects. Again, I think I've felt them. They are all hard to keep everyday, some days I just can’t find the strength to keep them. I gain them back eventually and it does help. It makes me feel stronger, better, and even more whole, but it’s missing something. Why would I want to hurt myself everyday when I could just have those three things? There is just something alluring about that goal on the top of the hill, what it would mean to hover, something not realistic, which just makes me try to reach for it everyday.
I truly am sorry for those who gave up that climb forever. Sometimes the fall is too hard. Too rough. Too unforgiving. People aren't weak or quitters for trying to rest, it's just too much to deal with sometimes. But to not climb forever, that truly is the greatest tragedy. I might get hurt, but at least the moment when I jump is what truly makes me remember that day. All days, all hours, every ticking second is the same as the last, nothing different. Even the fall is the same, because it never truly leaves. But that minute, that instant, when I jump is really which is different. It seems so unimportant, but it might be the most important part. You have to try before you see that you fell.
You can never try twice in the same day. I learned that the hard way. I felt that I was so close, so near to that feeling that I could almost bask in it. Alas, the world, and its gravity, pulled me down again. I was so close! Perhaps I could do it if I tried again. I tried to climb up the hill on the other side, trying to get that feeling again. I dug my claws into the dirt until it hurt and tried to reach the peak, shaking with anticipation. Unfortunately, it was too slippery, too muddy, and too steep a request that I tumbled down harder than the initial fall. To have it so close, to try to get it one more time, and relive that experience was even worse than I imagined. I never tried again twice in the same day again.
Some days it feels like time is running out. Maybe I slouched, maybe if I did it sooner or later it would've worked. Maybe it will never matter and never has. A joke. An illusion that I made up just to not acknowledge the pain in my scales. I begin to get desperate. I can’t tell anyone because they could never understand what is at stake, what they all have to do everyday, the fall they have, and the goal that awaits there, and they wouldn't listen. Nobody ever wants to remember the pain. Some days I wish I could write down what the pain feels like, only to find the quill is out of ink, all the parchment is missing, or the scroll is too soggy.
…some days. Some days I could wish I could make others know what the fall is like. To make them remember and that they could help me, or at least listen. But I know better. The fall is deeper than any abyss, more terrifying than any creature, more heart-breaking than any fiction, and more tangible than any of those things. To make them remember the fall and not climb up the hill, burns my scales as much as going home did.
So why do it? Why try each and every day to go up and fail? To know I probably won’t reach the goal, if I even know what it is, when there is so much things that are more accessible, more plausible, and less agonizing?
While there isn't a singular, logical explanation, I can give an illogical, but somehow, accurate one. To feel that single elation of joy, or unexplainable meaning, for but a moment. To caress the wide open sky. To have it, to hold it, to be part of it. To feel it inside myself, something deep tugging me everyday, and to know that is only part of the experience, is truly amazing. The sky is so filled with possibilities, so many feelings I don’t know, that I just feel so mesmerized. I sound like a fool, a lunatic, because I am one. Not the kind that wish the fall on others, but wish to make the jump and hover, then keep going after that. Even the fall itself is a somber, but real reminder. To go up that hill, after taking a plunder the previous day, and be able to jump again, is truly amazing. I can’t describe it as hope, but a force. A presence, within myself, flowing through my body. To have the strength within myself to do things I couldn't dream of before and get to jump everyday, no matter how many times I build myself and fall, is enough. That freedom, to know myself for that moment, not to forget the fall is coming or what it feels like, but know that it won’t destroy me, is enough. The goal is not a promise, those are always broken. The goal is not tangible, for those can fade and are difficult to keep. The goal is not given, for it would not be worth having. The goal doesn't need to be explained because it is everywhere, on top of every hill, in the eyes of every creature who doesn't ignore it.
Yes, it is hard. Yes, it can be unfair. Yes, it can be hard to get up for every day.
Yet…I think it is a goal worth falling for. A goal not worth dying for, but living for. Just enough.
"Spike! Get up! Your wings have just grown!"
