Try again

I didn't mind the rain that night. I didn't even feel it on me. I just saw it with my eyes as I was making my way through it.

When you walk in a trance, your mind fixed on the goal, you lose connection with your nerve endings. They go numb. They hide, dulled, they know it's not their time.

You can walk for miles and not feel anything. No pain in your body, no fatigue, no distractions.

Time slows down when you're walking like that. Slow motion and blurriness take over. A filter is applied to your screen. Your eyes. You see things you normally don't pay attention to. Things you're unable to see because your mind's wanderin'. You're looking at a film reel, frame by frame. I could see raindrops descending onto my face. I could see reflections of myself in falling water.

That didn't matter one bit. It only added to the theme. A mere decoration.

I kept making my way through the tunnel. A tunnel of focused thoughts that rearranged the surroundings, morphed them into a unified block of colors and shapes. Trees, buildings, people, air, life, every atom, every particle were more or less one entity. A collage.

They made for a border. A perimeter. If you would ever get distracted and breached it, you would fall.

You would lose. Kind of. You would lose the sight of your goal. For a brief moment you would see it being swept away. A result of your carelessness.

I've been there.

I've fallen.

Many times. Down the abyss.

It hurts more when you're falling down than when you finally hit the ground. It's when you see the path through your desperately outstretched palm, it hurts the most. You see it slipping away. Fading in the distance.

At least when you hit the bottom you know you've reached the low point. A point from which you can only build up. So you gather yourself. You can curse under your nose all you want. I know I have. It's a long fucking journey. You dust off your clothes and start the climb. Make your way back up again. Take a deep breath. Enter the tunnel. Try again.

It's not easy. I takes an insurmountable toll. But it's all there is. You try again. I try again.

Focus on the goal. Give it all you've got. No matter the cost. Make your way through the rain.