{get back up}

"and why do we fall? so we can learn to get back up"
- Batman

and i begin to wonder if perhaps that is what Margaret Thatcher meant when she said that 'you may have to fight a battle more than once to win it

because the first time you charge into the fray, hopeful, you will fly high and you will fall hard and for the first and second and third and fourth time you will see that it is all far harder than you'd ever thought it would be - could be

and you keep falling and you keep getting back up and by the fifth and sixth and seventh fall, you begin to see just what it will take in order to achieve the victory, and that nothing is a quick fix, but there are changes you can make, and lessons to be learned, and sometimes the more you fall, the better off you are in the long run

it is the difference between Dieppe and Normandy, the difference between hope and fear, the difference between God-dragged-me-kicking-and-screaming-into-'healthy' and one-day-i-chose-to-decide-to-walk-in-His-Will-and-learned-that-He-will-lead-me.

it is the difference between lasting change, and just behavior modification.

and God knows i need real change

but God also knows that I cannot change me.

only He can.

so i guess i'm back where i started at

the nameless day where i got up.

and i decided to choose.

see, i fell. again.

i fell hard and i fell fast and i was sure that i didn't even want to try to brave the impossible climb.

but this time, something changed.

this time, instead of waiting till i spiral further and He is forced to grapple-hook me, i brace both arms and heels on the sides of the pit to stop my rapid decline.

i take a deep, shaking breath.

i stand up and lift my face towards the light.

and i begin to climb.