The Season of My Own Making

Some years don’t unfold — they explode.
One moment, you think you’ve finally found your rhythm; the next, you’re lying on the ground wondering how something so right went so wrong. I’ve had my share of those years — the kind where progress and pain coexist like mismatched roommates.

The past year was supposed to be linear. I had plans, schedules, spreadsheets, even color-coded tabs for every phase of my trek training. But life, it turns out, doesn’t care for bullet points. It arrives unannounced, rearranges your script, and leaves you staring at a version of yourself you didn’t recognize.

I’ve spent months swinging between triumph and frustration — reaching new summits one week and limping through rest days the next. My body rebelled in ways I didn’t expect, my mind wandered into dark corners I thought I’d sealed off, and yet somewhere in that chaos, I began to understand the real terrain I was navigating wasn’t the mountain — it was me.

When everything you’ve built starts slipping, you learn a new kind of stillness. The kind where you sit with discomfort without trying to fix it. The kind where you cry, stretch, rest, and return — not out of motivation, but out of respect for your own effort. It’s not resilience that keeps you going; it’s the quiet agreement you make with yourself to try again, even when you’re not sure what “trying” means anymore.

I’ve learned that growth rarely looks graceful. It’s clumsy, confusing, and sometimes boring. One day you’re strong enough to carry your backpack up a ridge, the next you’re bargaining with your own legs to take just one more step.

And yet, somewhere between those contradictions
— the soreness and the serenity, the ambition and the surrender — something shifts.
You stop chasing perfect seasons and start building peace inside imperfect ones.

These treks, the runs, the plans — they’re just metaphors for the same lesson: control is an illusion, but commitment isn’t. You don’t always get to choose how your story unfolds, but you do get to show up for the next chapter.

If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that the climb never really ends. You just get better at carrying yourself through it.

Control is an illusion, but commitment isn’t.