The Mountain
One More Step
People talk about mountains like they’re enemies. Like they rise up just to block your view, just to make your life harder. But the truth is, a mountain doesn’t do anything at all. It just exists. A big old rock, unmoving, indifferent. The struggle isn’t the mountain. The struggle is deciding to climb it anyway.
I learned that early, though I didn’t have the words for it then.
At the bottom of my mountain stood my grandmother. Small. Fragile. Strong in the way only people who’ve survived entire lifetimes can be. She didn’t ask to be at the base of anything. None of us did. But there we were, family tangled together like loose ropes, some holding tight, others fraying, some cutting straight into the skin.
That’s where the climb began.
The first steps never look heroic. They’re clumsy. Heavy boots on uneven ground. You don’t know yet how high the mountain goes, and if you did, you might turn around and walk away. But you don’t. You lace your boots a little tighter. You lean forward. You take a left. Then a right. Then you stop, not because you’re done, but because your lungs burn and your heart is screaming, What the hell are you doing?
And that’s when life whispers back, Keep going.
People think the hardest part is the height. It isn’t. The hardest part is the falling.
I fell more times than I can count. Slipped on trust. Lost footing on family loyalty. Reached for hands that weren’t there, or worse, were there only to shove me back down. Every fall taught me something brutal: pain doesn’t ask permission, and betrayal doesn’t announce itself.
Sometimes I lay there on the side of that mountain, dirt in my mouth, knees bleeding, wondering how something that’s “just a rock” could hurt so damn much.
But then there was Gram.
She was the reason I couldn’t stay down. Every time I wanted to quit, I’d think about her standing alone at the bottom, watching the climb she didn’t have the strength to make anymore. She trusted me with her fear. With her safety. With her story. And that kind of trust weighs more than any pack you carry uphill.
So I got back up.
A left. A right. One more step.
That’s the lie people tell about mountains… that once you reach the top, it’s over. That you plant your flag and feel victorious and whole. But every peak I reached wasn’t an ending. It was a reckoning.
Each one forced me to look back at what I survived. The manipulation. The gaslighting. The family wounds dressed up as love. The nights I didn’t sleep. The days I carried rage, grief, and determination all at once because setting any of them down felt like losing momentum.
Every peak said, You made it through this part.
And every peak also revealed something worse:
Another mountain.
Just a little bit higher.
That’s when I learned why you have to know the bottom if you want to be a climber.
The bottom teaches you humility. It teaches you who showed up and who didn’t. It teaches you how far you can fall without dying. It teaches you that strength isn’t loud. It’s quiet. It’s stubborn. It’s standing back up when no one is clapping.
When things got ugly, really ugly, I reminded myself: it’s only a mountain. Not a monster. Not a curse. Just something to climb.
And some days, climbing didn’t look like progress. Some days, climbing meant staying still. Holding the line. Protecting Gram. Saying “no” when it would’ve been easier to say nothing. Breathing through the ache and trusting that movement would come back.
Other days, I climbed angry. Furious steps. Teeth clenched. Heart pounding. Because anger, when aimed right, can be fuel. It can carry you through places hope can’t reach yet.
There were moments I wanted to quit, not dramatically, not loudly but quietly. The kind of quitting where you just sit down and let the mountain win by default. Those were the most dangerous moments of all.
But I didn’t quit.
I tightened my boots again.
I adjusted my grip.
I took another step.
Because somewhere along the climb, I realized something else: the mountain wasn’t trying to break me. It was revealing me.
It showed me how much I could love without guarantees.
How much I could endure without recognition.
How fiercely I could protect someone who needed me when the system, the family, and the world all failed her.
And when I hear that song, the one about the mountain, I cry because it tells the truth. Not the pretty truth. The earned truth.
Life is hard.
You fall.
You want to give up.
You keep going anyway.
And every time you reach a peak, it’s not because the mountain got smaller. It’s because you got stronger.
I’m still climbing.
There’s always another rise ahead.
But I know the bottom now.
I know the weight of my boots.
I know the rhythm of my steps.
A left.
A right.
One more.
After all, it’s only a mountain.