I have hit the bottom more times than I can count.
Some days, it felt like living underwater, lungs burning, the world moving above me, untouchable. I have felt the cold sting of failure like frost on bare skin and the quiet weight of shame when nothing goes right. And yet, each fall taught me something about gravity, how it pulls, how it wounds, and how it eventually releases.
The bottom teaches a patient courage.
But it makes loss stop feeling like a threat because it has already found me. Rejection stops feeling sharp because I have heard “no” too many times to flinch. Even fear becomes a signal rather than a cage, rising like smoke in the corners of my mind. I no longer fear myself, the messy, imperfect person who keeps rising even when the world seems designed to knock me down.
I have taken risks and paid for them. I have loved too much, failed too publicly, and trusted too often. I have walked through nights that stretched endlessly, each moment a shadow I thought I could never escape. And yet, here I am.
The bottom has a gift.
It strips away pretence, pride, and illusion. It leaves only what matters: courage and freedom. Like wind clearing a storm from a jagged mountain, it exposes the edges of who I am, the parts that can endure, the parts that can rise. When there is nothing left to lose, every step forward feels lighter, every risk alive, every choice deliberate.
I am ready now.
Not because fear is gone, it still coils in corners of my mind, but because it no longer cages me. Every scar and bruise is a map, marking the path I have survived. I have been burned, bruised, and broken, and yet I endure. The bottom cannot touch me anymore.
This is not power over others. It is liberation. Walls built from past wounds crumble naturally when life strips you bare enough times. Hesitation is no longer a luxury. I move forward with curiosity, with courage, with a heart open to risk. I dream bigger, try harder, not recklessly, but with the certainty that the floor has claimed nothing more.
I am not at the top yet, but I feel its pull. The climb stretches ahead like a mountain shrouded in mist, jagged and uncertain. I see the path, hear the wind in the ridges, feel cold stone under my hands. Instead of dread, I feel possibility.
Every failure, every bruise, every night in darkness has become a toolkit. I know how to move. I know how to endure. I know how to rise. Each scar is a lesson etched into my skin, each bruise a testament to persistence. I rise with confidence born of experience, with nothing to lose and a heart open to risk.
The journey will not be easy. The climb may be steep, slippery, unforgiving. I may stumble. I may fall again. But I am no longer defined by the lows. I am defined by the courage to rise again. I have been at the bottom too many times to fear it.
Now, I am ready for the top.
I step forward with the fire of survival burning in my chest.
The bottom cannot harm me anymore.
The fall is no longer a threat.
The mountain waits for me, jagged and alive,
And I will rise to meet it.
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