Uphill Both Ways

 How can something possibly be uphill both ways?  It only makes sense that if you go uphill one way, when you turn around, or go down the other side you will be on the downhill, right?  Science tells us that what goes up must come down.  So there is no way something can be uphill both ways....until it is.  

Here's what happened: I started riding my bike (yes, it's another bike story) up a long uphill slope. 

 Each day my eyes tell me it is uphill.  

My legs, pumping the pedals, tell me its uphill.  

My heaving lungs tell me its uphill.  

I have science on my side.  Its definitely uphill....all the way.  At some point, I reach the summit and turn around to come back down. 

I am looking forward to the break.  My legs are burning.  My lungs are burning.  I am gasping for each breath.  As I go back down the slow decline my eyes tell me I am now going downhill.  My legs, however, beg to differ.  They are still having to pedal as though I am going uphill.  My lungs agree.  They are working much too hard.  Where is the coasting my eyes are telling them should be happening?

It turns out that I am at the mouth of a canyon, and there is always a wind blowing through that canyon.  On the uphill the wind is at my back, though the incline is still very strenuous for me.  On the way back the wind is blowing against me, preventing me from coasting down the hill.  Instead, I must pedal against the wind to keep moving forward.  

The first time this happened I was very disappointed.  I thought the way back was going to be easy.  Instead I got just the opposite.  "Not fair!" I thought.  "I earned this break!  Its not supposed to be this way!"  But it is.  

Do you ever feel that way, like life is uphill both ways?  

And just when you have reached the point where things are supposed to get easier, they don't?  "Not fair!" we say.  "I earned this break!  Its not supposed to be this way!"  But it is.

 I remember this with raising children.  "Once you get everyone out of diapers it gets easier" I was told.  "Once all the children are in school".  And then, "Once they get a little older." and so on.   I kept waiting for the downhill.  But it didn't come.  Instead I got teenagers.  Regardless of what I was expecting to 'see', life felt uphill both ways.

As I look at things now from a distance, as though looking back on my life and the ride I have chosen, what good has come of so much effort?

I am stronger.  Much stronger.  So much better equipped to handle big uphill's than I ever would have been from coasting half the time.  

I feel more self assured.  I know I can do really hard things.  I've done really hard things.  And lived to tell about it.

The best part though, is how much I appreciate the true downhills.  Had I gotten what I expected all along, I never would have appreciated the easy times, the rests and lulls that actually do come. They are like unexpected gifts that make life (and bike rides) very sweet,  rich and full.  

Would I prefer to be weak, less self assured and entitled?  Not in a million years.  I like who I am and what I have come through.  It has made me who I am.  The burning legs and lungs of life have been worth it. 

So if you are pedaling uphill, or against the wind, keep moving forward.  Don't give up.  It is worth it.