Congratulations Mountaineer in Love!

Mountains’r nice. Everyone knows it, and some people deny it to themselves, but those who are true to both the world around them and their hearts spend their lives acknowledging how great mountains are and climbing them whenever possible. But, of course, this true-ness isn’t for everyone. Even though you embraced it you fell in love with a woman who couldn’t admit to herself what love was (she currently believes love is a well sharpened set of knives, a mid-priced vacuum and a husband who works in the financial sector) and that just did it for you: you put all your love into mountains.

You climbed ‘em and climbed ‘em and climbed ‘em some more, all the while hoping that climbing one of these mountains would somehow conquer her heart. But it turns out that living in relative isolation and enduring physical hardship is NOT how modern women like to be courted, and she spent most of her time on online singles profiles, where she fell into an unhealthy relationship where she had everything she thought she wanted and, from there, decided to get married. Which left you mountaining your heart out, mountaining twice as hard as you ever had before just to keep your head above water.

You’ve mountained everywhere you can think of by now: most of the continental United States, Europe, eastern Europe, that one place in Africa, the less-stabby parts of Asia. There’s really only one set of mountains left for you to conquer: the Himalayas.

So today you’re going to begin the first in an epic series of virtually gearless climbs, wearing only a winter jacket and carrying the backpack you had when you still held her heart (and the whole world) in your hands. You’re going to step on Everest and for the first time in a long time, the majesty of nature will strike you and, for a heartbeat, push the feelings of dejection and self-hatred that normally make up your day to day out of your mind.

Later you’ll feel vaguely disappointed by the raw amount of human waste dotting the mountainside. You’ll get to the top and wonder, mind dazed for lack of oxygen, if that’s all there is. Then you’ll realize just how high you really are and how remarkable it is that enough people have come this far to actually make the amount of human shit on the mountain a problem. It’ll be bittersweet, but it’ll be better than mooning after that dumb bitch who, let’s face it, probably isn’t as cool as you’ve made her out to be.

Congratulations Mountaineer in Love!