One More Step

Ah, light at the end of the tunnel. Just a few more steps and the prize will be in my hands. I will have attained what I’ve been working for, for so long. But I’m tired. I ache all over. Sometimes I even doubt that I can make it up these few steps. These steps are just like any other steps. Just need to lift my foot, step on it and do the same with my other foot and step on the one above. And do this over and over until there are no more steps, until there is relief that the race is over. Just need to keep going until I find that I’ve reached the top.

If it is so easy, why am I not doing it? I don’t think that it is fear, yet I hesitate to take that first step, never mind the ones after that. Why? And then it hits me. I finally realize why I ache all over and why I’m looking at these steps going up. I was there at the top landing, but not anymore. This realization just brings up more pain and a sense of loss that is impossible to express in words. However that same realization gives me strength. Yes, strength, because I know I’ve been up there. I know that I’ve walked this path and climbed many other steps like these ones. I may not have the same vitality that I had earlier in my journey. But what I lack in strength I make up in knowledge, experience and persistence. A new sense of hope grows in me. A hope that stems from knowing what is at the top of that landing. A hope that again I can reach for the top. A hope that stems from knowing that the art of living life is not going through it unscathed or full of scars, no, the art if living life comes from knowing that after you fall all that you need to do is to get up and take that next step in the direction that you were intending.