The Mountain Was Never The Point

I’ve climbed a lot of mountains.

I’ve even hiked 107 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Those miles didn’t make me fearless or invincible.

They did something quieter—

and far more useful.

They taught me what I could do.

How my body responds to effort.

How my mind steadies with repetition.

How progress is usually unremarkable and earned one step at a time.

So when I talk about mountains, I’m not reaching for a metaphor right away.

I’m remembering real terrain, real weather, real limits—

and the confidence that comes from meeting them.

For a long time, I thought the mountain was the story.

Climb it.

Reach the summit.

Let the accomplishment speak for itself.

That’s how we’re taught to tell transformation stories.

Conquest. Endurance. Triumph through suffering.

The harder the climb, the more legitimate the outcome.

But after a lot of climbs, I know

the mountain was never the point.

It was part of the work.

The mountain wasn’t something to win.

It was something to move through—

long enough to change how I stood inside myself.

That was true on actual mountains.

And it became even truer later, when the terrain stopped being physical.

When what I was climbing no longer had elevation or trail markers.

It was a mountain inside of me.

Once that internal shift happened, the summit meant something different.

It didn’t mark completion.

It revealed something I couldn’t see from below:

that I had been moving toward a moment of choice.

I assumed that choice would still include a way back.

A marked descent.

A familiar return to known terrain, just carrying more wisdom and scars.

But the hardest climbs in life don’t offer that option.

What the climb actually did wasn’t just strengthen me.

It clarified me.

It dismantled my reliance on external validation.

Loosened my attachment to predefined routes.

Taught me to trust myself when there was no map and no one else to consult.

Somewhere deep in the hardest stretch—

while holding grief, responsibility, visibility, and betrayal all at once—

I stopped waiting for permission.

I stopped asking how this was supposed to work.

2025 wasn’t about proving I could make it through.

I already knew I could endure.

It was about discovering that endurance was never the goal.

The mountain trained me for possibility.

For choice.

For a life not earned through suffering,

but shaped through agency and self-respect.

And I’m choosing accordingly.