Curtain Call for 2009

Published December 31st, 2009

I can’t breathe. I’m sucking wind like crazy. Sweat is dripping down my face, I took off my hat to cool off more but that short, fleeting relief is in the past. I look up, ahead and up. The trail continues up, up, up, no leveling out in sight. I’ve got a heavy pack on my back. I’m nowhere near keeping up with anyone else. I’m last on the trail. One hiking buddy is holding back to make sure I make it. And it’s not going to be soon. I can’t see. Tunnel vision. I’m starving. I’m overheating. I have to stop. I’m too old to be doing this, and too young to be failing. This shouldn’t be this hard. It doesn’t seem to be for anyone else. My knees are screaming, my lungs are burning, my head is pounding and I’m in the middle of a trail on a steep hill in a forest miles from anything and nearly two miles up in the air.

I beg to stop. Fuck it, I stop. I stop. I need a break. I need to pretend for a few minutes that I don’t have to keep climbing this stupid hill. I tell my hiking partner I can’t see straight, I’m about to pass out. I get out a CLIF bar to eat. I get some water. This hill is kicking. My. Ass. A 10 year old and his father pass us. It’s not his fault. He doesn’t know any better. He doesn’t know how far up this hill still goes. He’s not carrying a heavy weight on his back. He’s not just turned 30 and climbing up a hill with no end in sight.

In the end I made it up the hill. I beat the kid and his dad by about 5 minutes too, so there. But, sitting there on the side of the trail, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it up the hill anytime soon. It took just about everything out of me. The only thing keeping me sane and hopeful was that we were on our way out, and I knew the trail leveled out for a long way after that. I can walk a long way on flat ground. But hills destroy me. That was September, backpacking in Sequoia. I didn’t enjoy the trip as much this year as I did 5 years ago when I went - and I didn’t really enjoy that trip all that much either. I think I’d rather do camping and less backpacking.

This year has really felt like climbing that hill. All year. This has been one of the most prolonged, stressful years I’ve had. No breaks. No leveling out. Always one thing after another. A terrifyingly wonderful and exciting but miserably broken and agonizing relationship for half the year. Job insecurity and uncertainty for most of the year - and given the economy, it really was scary. And just a complete slog for the back half of the year, both personally and professionally. With false signs and unfortunate detours. Much thanks to my close friends and my kickball mates for helping me hold on to some very tenuous threads of sanity. My goals for 2009 were to really grow myself. I have been trying hard all year. I have not succeeded to any level I consider “successful” - damn.

Everyone says I’m too hard on myself, and I agree. I just don’t know how else to be. I have serious problems accepting partial successes. I set my goals high, probably too high, and so everything I accomplish is short of the goal. But I don’t know any other way. And for some reason, I always feel like a partial success is akin to failure. Even though it’s not. I may have grown, I have grown, but I don’t seem to have much in the way of tangible success at this point. Maybe 2010 will provide that. But looking at where I am now as opposed to say, September of 2008 - hard to see much difference at a glance. And that feels a little like failure to me.

So 2009 has been a constant climb. I still don’t see the end in sight, so that makes 2010 a scary year upcoming. I can sorta see some signposts up ahead but I can’t read them yet. I don’t know if they’re saying “flat space ahead” or “caution, steeper grade coming”.

In the end I made it up the hill in the forest. I made it at my own pace, because that’s the only pace I could keep. I made it under my own power, and I felt a little humiliated and a little proud at the same time. I kinda feel that way every day though. I’m 30. I never thought 10 years ago that I’d be who I am today - and the differences both humiliate and excite me. But I have so, so far to go. I need to build on my partial successes and not only see them as partial failures.

I need to learn from some of my friends who impress and amaze me. I need to be more confident in myself and take more risks. I need to stop being afraid of failure - because I fail all the time anyway. I need to be more aggressive in my personal and professional life. I need to not be discouraged. And I need to be able to better control it all, and recognize that I can’t control everything I want. Which is paradoxical.

So. I can’t head downhill, that’s back into a trap and nothingness. I can only head up this steep, brutal, exhaustive hill. I don’t even know where I’m going, and that’s sort of a problem. I need to find some trail markers to follow. I need to be the person I want to be. I need to continue to grow in the direction I want to go even though I’m not sure what that means a lot of the time. Or how to accomplish anything at all.

So welcome a new year, a new decade. The aughts are gone, here come the teens. I don’t know if I’m up for this. I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to get where I want to go - but I’ll keep going, at my own pace, and I will try to find a level flat space at the top of this hill.

I just really hope it’s soon, because 2009 has been a bear.

Happy New Year, everyone. May 2010 bring you joy, wonder and riches beyond compare.

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