Ain't No Mountain High Enough

It was a goal of mine this summer to conquer a mountain in my life. Although there are always figurative ones, this one was literally a mountain. It's called the Grouse Grind. Everyday locals and tourists, the fit and unfit, traverse their way up what's been dubbed "Mother Nature's Stairmaster." In essence, instead of leisurely skiing down the ski hill, you climb a grueling path straight up to it. By the time you reach the top you've ascended 2,800 ft. This past weekend I did it and I'm not going to lie, it was brutal. There are times I thought I was going to die. That my heart would just stop beating and my lungs would explode and my legs would simply give up and fall off. By the time I reached the top however, I had almost forgotten all the hardship I'd endured to get there. I felt such a sense of accomplishment. In fact, on the way up I was cursing under my breath, "I am NEVER doing this again. EVER." But at the end, I felt this rush to go again. Uh, not right away or anything, but you know, someday.

Not surprisingly, the whole literal mountain experience gave me some pretty good perspective on the figurative ones. Not to pack it into a couple trite sentences, but it can be really hard to see any whys and hows in the midst of difficult circumstances; to keep on truckin' when all you see is more mountain in front of you and you don't know how you could possibly take one more step. But hindsight really is 20/20. And there is no feeling quite like pushing through to the end, refusing to give up, and being able to look back at how far you've come.

I do have to confess that I had a little help on the way up though. Just so happened that Tom Welling, the tall, dark and handsome man who plays Superman on Smallville, was traversing the steep cliffs at the same time. At one point, as he came up from behind me and my climbing party just as we were tempted to stop, he exclaimed, “Keep going girls!” Must say, a little encouragement from a very attractive man sure helps a gal reach her climax.