What Goes Up Must Come Down

What Goes Up Must Come Down from Hannah Green on Vimeo.

Huffing it up a hill. Heart pounding. Sweat dripping. Legs aching. Phew! Made it.

As I hiked my way to the top of Green Mountain the other day, I wondered why I do it. Why do I always have an insatiable desire to push it uphill? In fact why does anyone put themselves through the pain of reaching the top when there are always easier, less excruciating paths? Suddenly I realized life is that way.

Step after step, day after day, year after year, the hills come and so do their peaks. Reaching the “top” could mean many things. Physically reaching the top is a sign of strength, historically it’s a sign of dominance and power, and today it is the unattainable goal of many. Along the way I always question myself: why do I do this?; is there not an easier way?; am I being weak, lazy, incompetent? Something I never question is if I will make it. The pain caused is of my own volition. I do it to myself, for myself. No one else is ever held responsible.

What is even more ironic about the symbolism contained in reaching the “top” is that you always have to return to the bottom. As the law of gravity states, what goes up must come down. In high school, I looked forward to my senior year from the first day of class as a freshman. Once it arrived, I reveled in the notion of being at the top. Younger students looked up to me, teachers respected me, people knew who Hannah Green was; then college came and plop! I’m right back down at the bottom again. My sister graduated a few years ago and now has found herself at the bottom too—unemployed.

The only person who I know that is at a sustainable “top” is my Grandad. At 96 years old, a successful lawyer and owner of a bank he is at the top of the totem pole—that is in the financial world. His health is certainly failing. His mind is remarkably sharp, yet there are moments when he says things in a mock child voice. If you have ever seen Benjamin Button, well I that is my granddad. He is reverse aging. Physically and mentally he relies on people to help him, just as an infant relies on his parents. So, maybe he is not really at the top, but almost back to the bottom again.

Skiers and snowboarders know the feeling, getting to the bottom only to have to sit patiently on the ski lift to get to the top of the mountain. Rock climbers, pilots, sky divers, etc. all await the ease of the downhill only to want to go back up. In this lies another revelation in that we always want to go against the laws. Going up is a rebellion of sorts, a rebellion against gravity. While humans are unable to fly freely like birds, we have made ways to simulate the feeling only a select few will enjoy as they journey beyond Earth’s gravitational pull.

Right now I am in an uphill battle with an injury, but I can see the top getting a little closer. Sometimes I slip and stumble, taking a few steps back down. I keep pushing on. I may have to give up what I love momentarily, running, but eventually I’ll reach the top. Only this time I hope to not encounter the bottom of the hill with an injury, just simply the bottom only to be able to run up it again the next day.

Life is a never-ending uphill battle. What amazes me is the fact that we never give up, we persevere. Unlike making lemonade from lemons, you have to keep your head up and look towards the top with a hill; at the same time, you have to keep focused on what is right in front of you, or else you might trip. In my short life I have already seen many hills where the sweat drips, the scratches bleed, and the tears surface. They, the hills, will always be there, some long, some short. Indubitably my path will go up them not once, not twice, but innumerable times—that is life.