Run the Hill

I am sixteen and heartbroken. I feel as though my whole life has fallen apart. There is nothing more that I’d like than to fall asleep and not wake up ever again. But I do. Every time, I wake up and here I am…in this meaningless life in this meaningless town.

I put on my shoes and walk. I don’t know where I’m going. I just feel the need to move my feet. I let them move until I feel myself jogging. I’m not dressed right. Sure, I’ve got tennis shoes, but with jean shorts and a tank top. Oh well.

I stop and stare at it before me: the hill on Arlington Ave. It stands there, steep and unmoving. It stood there, the same as it had been the day before…the same that it will be tomorrow.

Run the hill.

I make it to the top and feel like I could vomit. That’s happened before, but not this time. For a moment, I forget how much I’m supposed to hate my life. In this moment, it is all I can do to just breath. “In through the nose; out through the mouth.” The phrase repeats itself in my head.

In that moment, I didn’t what to do…but my body did.

To survive that moment, I needed to get out of my head. I had to get out of my head and into my body. I didn’t need to know what the word “embodiment” meant in that moment. My body knew what it needed to do to survive. In those moments at the top of the hill breathless and sweating, my body got what it needed out of me.

Even further than that, I also was embodying something else I wasn’t aware of at the time but see so clearly in retrospect. In running the hill, I found deep within myself a gritty part of me that possessed a strength and power that the rest of me wasn’t aware of yet.

Inside of every person is a part that is indestructible. It is the part of you that will endure no matter what is thrown at it. This part is the huntress, biting through and surviving above all else. That part is in me, and it is in you. That part of you is capable of just about anything, including achieving your wildest dreams.

Run the hill.

There are moments you will be called to show up. You will look at the hill and you will think “I can’t do this.” Yet, it is in these moments that we define ourselves. Know that what we want to do the least is most often the thing that we need to do the most.

Reach down deep inside of you in search of the part that is indestructible. Find that piece of you and then activate it. When life calls you, run the damn hill. It’s okay if you vomit. You’re allowed to fall flat on your face. It’s fine if you fall down and scrape your knee. But you’re going to get back up…because you’re indestructible.