California December 2008
For the month of December, Ben was living in my apartment, as he had a podiatry rotation about 20 minutes away. It has been a fun brother-sister reunion, and I forgot how fun it is to spend time together, and how different our opinions of "messy" are.
Towards the end of our stay together, I had my birthday. In a grandiose display of brotherly affection, Ben lovingly took me on a 4 hour bike ride up a mountain in 40 degree weather to celebrate. As we slowly climbed 3000 feet with sweeping views of the San Fransisco bay as the backdrop, I pondered two things: how many pieces of birthday cake I was earning, and LIFE.
I wanted to share a few thoughts from the ride:
As we continued to climb the hill, it seemed to keep going UP. I was sure the summit was just around the corner, but as we rounded, we were only faced with more UP. Many many times, I thought, okay, we are are almost there. No more up. WRONG. There was an unbelievable amount of endless UP. As we were burdened with the UP and more UP, I very much longed for DOWN.
I kept thinking, the downhill will be worth it. Keep going, because you'll enjoy the downhill. After 3.5 hours of UP, we were nearing the summit. The end goal--at last! About 200 yards away from reaching the very top, we hit a roadblock. Ice. Snow. Covering the road. I didn't think it wise to ride across the ice and snow in my shorts with skinny tires and feet clipped in. Sounds like the recipe for death to me, so I stopped. After hours and hours hoping to reach the summit, we were stopped just short of reaching our goal. As we turned around to enjoy the much awaited downhill, almost simultaneously, the sun popped behind the clouds, and the temperature dropped quite a bit. With the wind going downhill, we quickly realized that this was going to be a miserable experience. We had to stop every 5-6 minutes to warm our hands so we could grip the brakes. I've never been so cold and miserable. The much anticipated down turned out to be disaster-- the worst part of the ride.
So what we learn from this experience?
Having expectations for the future during times of uncertainty is the recipe for disappointment. The ride would have been much more enjoyable if we had stopped trying to guess what was around the next corner, and would have just enjoyed the scenery and unknown. All seems uncertain for our family: Ben and Ashley are waiting to find out where he will be doing residency, the economy is teetering and we don't know what is next for Mom. We are learning to enjoy each day.
Not knowing what was ahead, at each turn I longed for DOWN. When life gets tough, it seems like there are times when surely, things couldn't get any more difficult. Then --KABLAM! Things get harder. During those times, I'm sure we all have the propensity to long for the downhill, when life feels easy. However, sometimes what we long for instead is no better. Instead of wishing things were different, we are trying to enjoy the uphill. Sometimes you think the uphill will be the worst, and the downhill will be better: not always. Savor where you are instead of longing for what is ahead.
When we unexpectedly hit the snow, we were thwarted from reaching the top: If you don't reach the summit, the uphill climb was not wasted. Even in times of challenge, pain and suffering, and UP-- the right and left still hold beautiful views. Even if the outcome isn't what we want, the journey still has intrinsic value.
