Yeah, I did it. The very tip top of the hill over Los Palmas…
Some things in life are almost too symbolic to mention. As if the great poet in the sky has scripted a scenario for the express purpose of teaching a lesson. Climbing a mountain is a metaphor for reaching one’s goals, or in my case achieving another benchmark in sobriety.
This morning I am feeling defiant. I don’t want to draw conclusions. I don’t feel particularly triumphant or inclined to make analogies about how far I’ve come now that I don’t drink.
In fact, the beautiful picture above is not the full picture. I did get to the top of the mountain, but it took two tries and two days. And it wasn’t pretty or particularly fun. There was a moment when I shuffled along the dusty road, no cloud cover in bloody, blistering heat when I thought, “How embarrassing, I’m actually not going to make it. Kim will have to drag my carcass to civilization…” I took a tepid pear out of my backpack and chewed it like manna: a desperate attempt to hydrate and raise my plummeting blood sugar and trudged on.
And I made it.
But sometimes climbing a mountain is just climbing a mountain. You put your head down and one foot in front of the other…
