One Foot in Front of the Other
When my brother lived nearby (e.g., not on the opposite coast of the U.S. or, as now, on the opposite side of the world), we used to make a point every year of getting together for a huge hiking trip. One year, we decided to do a nice little four-day deal on the Foothills Trail in our native South Carolina. It was extremely hot that year, but we figured, what the heck, they're foothills, right? How hard can it be? Right. It turns out that Foothills is South Carolinian for "Vertical Pain Mountains."
The Trail itself was constructed by what could only have been either a masochist attempting suicide the slowest way possible or an evil genius whose entire family had been killed by hikers and who was now seeking revenge. For some reason, the designers saw fit to take this thing straight up and straight down each individual mountain (switch-backs are for losers), to the point that long ladders had been installed in a number of places. It didn't help that the temperature hit record highs while we were on the trail., well over a hundred degrees. I'll spare other details, including nearly being hit by lighting, attacked by wild boar, and swarmed by hornets, but suffice it to say that it was fairly close to my imagining of the Bataan Death March.
In the end, though, we did the entire 35-mile stretch in a little over two days. We were exhausted, dehydrated, blistered the whole time, but we never let ourselves stop. In the morning heat, clambering over ridges, my pack aching on my shoulders, I don't think I've ever been so exhausted in my entire life. We were too tired to think, too tired to talk, too stubborn to give in. Life became the patch of ground ahead of me. One foot in front of the other was the only thing I knew how to do, and that's how we made it, that's how we didn't drop our packs and lie on the ground exhausted for hours, or hitch a ride on a boat to home when the trail dipped down to a lake at the half-way point. One foot in front of the other. Nothing exists but the ground before me. One foot in front of the other.
That's how I feel about life right now. One foot in front of the other. Not that I'm complaining, really, I know I'm very lucky. Still, between writing and Day Job, I scarcely have enough time to take a breath, and it can get extremely overwhelming. But
carrie_ryan and I have our ten-year plan, and we're sticking to it. And that's how we're going to make it, one foot in front of the other. Sometimes that's the only way to make it anywhere.
And now, a word count meter:
20,526 / 70,000
(29.3%)
Broke 20k, w00t! Far and away, this is officially the longest thing I've ever written!