BASE CAMP

we climb.  we climb.  and on occasion, we look down.  as the air thins, as our arms grow tired, as our eyes become weary.  we look down.  with our hearts heavy, we wonder.  will it ever be as good as it was down below?  will we ever be as good as we were down below?  sometimes we get so tired and so weary, and our lungs so desperate, we yearn for the sweet, sweet ground.  the places that we stood, so sure.  so energetic.  so strong and strong-minded.  where there was laughter and board games and neither our furniture nor our feelings felt so traveled and so weathered.  where our stories never started with a pause.  but, we climb.  we ascend.  because we have no choice.  because we have to.  we keep breathing what air we can breathe.  we keep breathing, because we have to.  because beyond the summits there are peaks.  and we hate to hope, because hope is synonomous with fear.  because hope is simply a lack of assurity.  because hope is all we can do.  we hate to hope.  but even when the air is thin, and our arms are tired and our hearts are sore, we hope.  because mostly, hope is all there is. 

i couldn't make eye contact.  i couldn't see beyond folded arms and table ledges.  i couldn't think of anything.  all i could do was miss the comfort and fear that comfort would never come back to me.  that kind of love would never come back to me.  that all those stories and all that laughter and all those board games would be buried there on the mountain.  in the snow.  frozen in time.  found ages later, so rare, that they would be nothing but cause for disbelief.  because it is so hard to come by these days.  they are peaks so out of reach.  they are bigger than hope.  and the fear makes you want to jump.  back down.  into piles of clothes that meant something at some time to someone other than yourself.  the different ways you were seen by someone who was more than just some one.  but we have to keep breathing.  our bodies don't know how to stop.  just as our hearts don't know how to stop pumping blood.  just as we don't know how to stop hoping, even when we hate it deep down into our cores.  we look up and we climb.  we climb.

but i can't escape the fear these days.  that fear.  i miss the ground.  base camp.  base camp.  base camp.

keep. breathing.