Hiking Bugaksan Mountain in Seoul, South Korea

In the final month of 2024, this particular day (in July 2024) kept replaying in my memory. So I've decided to share it, in all its raw metaphor, as my reflection post for 2024.
I knew I wanted to hike while I was in Seoul over the summer, but I also knew my health hadn't been the greatest. We settled on a smaller hike that seemed doable. The summer humidity, plus the rain, plus extra detours, plus my jello legs, made it a hard hike.
Harder than I had imagined.
When we finally reached the edge of the fortress wall near the peak, I was already mentally done. We had heard the top was closed and I had come all that way for nothing. Or was it for nothing? With another long staircase in front of me, not knowing if I would have to come right back down again, I trudged upward.
We reached the top to find it was open, and we could find another way down instead of going back the way we came. If the hike up was hard, the hike down (and up and down and up and down) was much harder. I started to grow irritable. Irritable at the rain, the exercise, and most of all: myself.
Nevertheless, we kept going.
View after view met us, breathtaking beauty met with burning lungs. And just when I thought we'd reached the end, we came to an incredibly steep paved road we needed to navigate down to reach the street. My knees and leg muscles were completely shot, and my mind was beyond ready to quit.
As we rested, soaked to the bone in a nearby cafe, I wished I had enjoyed it more. I wished I had been physically and mentally able to withstand one of the smallest mountains in the region. I should've been happy and proud of the accomplishment, but I was not. I've already shared prior that this trip became my "sad girl adventure" as I worked through grief and disappointed hopes, and this day was the pinnacle of that grief and disappointment.
On the ride back to the apartment, the tears finally surfaced in the cold, air conditioned subway car.
The release of all that had transpired.
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2024 has been exactly like this hike for me. Pushing myself to continue when all I wanted to do was quit.
Fighting to see beauty through rain and sweat and tears. Feeling as if I've accomplished nothing while conquering the mountains within myself. Another set of stairs, seemingly endless, up and down, up and down. Just when I thought I was making headway, another obstacle would be in front of me.
Nevertheless, I kept going.
Looking back, just as I've done while making this video, I can finally see the beauty in that day, the beauty in me, flourishing when I felt like I was floundering.
My plans for 2025 are simple and quiet: To feel the gentle rain on a mountain I must conquer, if only to see the view from the top.
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Stood on a sea of pain
Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain
I'll be back on my feet again
'Cause I am a mountain
-"iAAM" Coldplay