Climb ’Til Your Dream Comes True

A dream worth pursuing demands effort over uneven ground, but faith and effort do not remove the hardness of the climb.

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

The hill to my first rented apartment overseas was not symbolic until I had to climb it with groceries. Then it became very honest. Two bags are cutting into my fingers. Wet socks. A cheap rice cooker under one arm because the old one had died in the middle of cooking. At the top, the building elevator was out again. Dreams are never mentioned in these scenes, but this is where they send their invoices.

The poem behind this article speaks of climbing toward a dream. I understand the need for that language. Without some belief in upward motion, many people would sit down in the road and let history finish the job. But I want to rescue the climb from its greeting-card version. Hills do not care about your dream. They do not lower themselves because you are sincere.

When I became faculty, people saw the title and assumed arrival. Professor. Scientist. Mentor. The word sounded stable. Meanwhile, I was learning how to stretch one salary across two countries, answer student emails in a language that tired me faster than my own, and cook dinner while thinking about a lab safety audit. Arrival is often just a better-named climb.

Stereotypes make the hill steeper. The professor must be excellent but not angry. Male mentors must be firm but never tender enough to be questioned. Scientists must be rational, as if rational people do not wake at 4 a.m. calculating rent. The classroom wants your confidence. The department wants your output. The family wants your presence. The body wants sleep and receives coffee instead.

I have no patience for those who say the climb is beautiful. Some parts are beautiful. Most parts are stairs with bad lighting. A student misses a deadline because her mother lost work. A lab order is delayed because procurement treats urgency as a philosophical category. Your own child asks why you missed dinner twice in one week, and no dream sounds noble enough to answer him.

Faith, if it exists, is not a warm blanket. It is more like a stubborn muscle. It does not make the hill negotiable. It keeps the foot moving after dignity has become sweaty and unattractive.

One winter morning I slipped on the apartment stairs and dropped a container of soup. It opened on the landing, yellow lentils spreading like evidence. I was late for a lecture on molecular stability. I remember standing there, absurdly close to tears, holding the empty lid. No committee will ever record that morning. Yet it belonged to the same career as the publications.

The brutal truth is that dreams consume ordinary days. They eat clean kitchens, relaxed weekends, and the softer version of your face. Sometimes they repay you. Sometimes they only teach you the topography of your own stubbornness.

I still climb. Not because the hill deserves romance. Because below it, in the low place, something else waits with its mouth open. The dream is somewhere ahead, perhaps. The next step is underfoot, rude and factual.

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Story edited by Sofia K

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