Long Sentence (revised)

It was too hard, life was too hard, and the long road ahead would be longer still and even harder despite well-timed nods and advice of friends, the sympathetic sigh of  family and their reassuring hugs – especially aunt Donna, when she hugged you you felt her heart pouncing through her chest to meet with yours, you felt that if she could translate her faith in your abilities in a language you could understand, then everything would be alright...the road would be long and hard but doable, it wouldn’t be an incline, like so many insisted, people who had never ventured to walk the road yet somehow were prophets and critics of the road; the road up and the road down was the same, aunt Donna would insist, and walking it is reserved for she who is brave enough to take the first step, uncertain the road will meet your heel (and here she would wink and say, please don’t wear high heels either...not at first, anyway); yes, damn hard, F-ing hard, and it would be long – and here we come to the truth of it all: the time; not the path itself but how long it would take before you realized the end of the road, were satisfied with the miles blistered on your toes and heels, and the arthritis splintering like shards of glass and ice through your knees (knees you got from your grandmother – God rest her soul); and all this because you wanted things to happen sooner, quickly, but Ithaca isn’t a destination, isn’t that what Cavafy says, and doesn’t he counsel not to be cross with her if, upon reaching her glorious shores, there is nothing left for you there, not even beloved Penelope, because, and please don’t cry, she gave you this journey, this long journey – this life – and you have smelled the sweetest scents and heard the warmest voices, and seen the tallest peaks; you have broken your bones, and tasted your blood, and felt your spirit’s last gasps (of course, they weren’t); all these things Ithaca has given to you, enough experience so that you may (no, you must) hold your shoulders back and raise your troubled head high, and – look quick – behind you stands the greatest life of all, the hardest and most painful and sweetest and most glorified life of all...your life, sweet child, your life like a shadow behind you and yes, you noticed correctly, the sun, the sun and its angels of light cast upon you, a target unlike any other, a guide meant just for you, sweet child, because you took that step, sweet child, you learned to walk and never, ever forgot.