"The Climb"

before you start reading there´s a few people I would like to dedicate this blog to, My mom and dad, Bart Ashby, Craig Monson, Natalie Larsen, My Grandparent´s, and all my Family, Marv Sparow, Hermana G., and also all the other people who have helped me on my "climb"

I was recently going through some new songs when i ran across a new song by Miley Cyrus. I am normally not a fan of hers, but the lyrics to her song, “The Climb” struck me speechless. I´ve been thinking about it ever since and i´ve decided that those words really apply to me, at this time in my life, more than ever before. If you´ve never heard the song, turn up your speakers, and listen…if you can´t do that, here are the lyrics:

I can almost see it
That dream I'm dreaming but
There's a voice inside my head sayin,
You'll never reach it,
Every step I'm taking,
Every move I make feels
Lost with no direction
My faith is shaking but I
Got to keep trying
Got to keep my head held high

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I'm gonna to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing,
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down but
No I'm not breaking
I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm going to remember most yeah
Just got to keep going
And I,
I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on, cause

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I'm gonna to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb (yeah)

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes you going to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb (yeah yeah ea ea)

Keep on moving
Keep climbing
Keep the faith baby
It's all about
It's all about
The climb
Keep the faith
Keep your faith

The song talks about how, no matter how good it feels to accomplish that dream, at the end often times it´s the “climb” to the top of that mountain that is worth the most. Because think about it, when we were babies if we had just suddenly been able to take those first steps how successful would we feel? If at high school graduation someone just handed you a diploma and you hadn’t had to work 12 hard years for it, would you still feel that feeling of euphoria? If when you had to learn a foreign language you just woke up one day learning how to speak it would you feel the same sort of accomplishment? The answer to all of these is a resounding no. of course not. At times it´s easier to think that life would just be soooooooo much easier if we could just skip over the hard parts and arrive at the end, but, if that were the case would the end taste as sweet? I don´t think so.
Through some days of intense evaluation I’ve decided that it defiantly is “the climb” that makes each and every one of our daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly accomplishments worth it. We must go through every “hard day” to feel the euphoric ending when we reach the peak of that mountain.
Through the first few months of my stay in Ecuador I really started to wonder why in the world I was here. Nothing seemed to be going right, I had to change host families, school was so hard, I didn´t understand anything, and it was just turning out to be anything BUT what I had expected it to be. Well I had a friend tell me, “Emily, you are getting exactly what you signed up for, an adventure” I realized then and there that yes, I was getting what I wanted. I was getting an adventure. Sometimes each plan we have doesn´t go exactly as planned, scratch that, hardly EVER does it go exactly as planned, but it´s how we handle each and every situation that is thrown at us that makes all the difference in the world.
Now, six months later from that conversation, I look back and I understand more why I had to go through each robbing, each family change, and each hard day at school. And it´s because of each of those steps in my mountain that I was climbing that I am now closer to the top.
People who don´t understand me, and probably never will may look at these past months, and my Ecuadorian experience as a whole as a waste of time, money, space..etc.etc…but that´s just it. They don´t understand and they never will, because they never did it, they never lived this, and they were never the “blonde lost in Ecuador”. When I get home I will tell stories for years, and years to come, and yet no matter how many stories I tell or how many times I tell them no one will quite understand. No one will have been here, and no one will feel how I feel about “my Ecuador”
When my daughters and sons sit on my lap, or my grand children sit on my lap, or even my family and friends in years to come hear my Ecuador experiences I want them to know one thing. Ecuador Changed me. Each mental goal I had was accomplished, and many more. I look in the mirror and I am not the person I was last May, and there are things I had to learn in my life that I couldn´t learn in southern Idaho. And I hope you all understand that. I will never regret my year here; I will never regret one single day I got to spend in Ecuador. My heart will always and forever belong in this place, with these people, who changed and continue to influence my life for the better.
And so, as each of us continue to climb our mountains, regardless of what they may be, remember…each step of that climb is so worth it in the end. At times we take detours, but in the end, we all rise triumphantly if we keep the faith, and continue on strong.

I love you all,
Em