Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - The Canyon's Edge - A Short Story About Hope

Episode Date: December 24, 2020

An ending is simply a beginning, in disguise...

I walked up to the canyon's edge and I looked. I remember thinking, this is my moment. I took a breath. I stepped back and I screamed. At the top of my lungs, I screamed. And out came my plans and my hopes and my dreams. I let the world know everything I've been building and everything I planned to build. Everything I knew and everything I intended to learn.

I explained everything. I felt all of me turn messenger packaged into these tiny airwaves and dispersed to the sky. Echoing one more time as they left is it for approval. And then... Nothing. No problem. I thought I'll just wait. But the second hand kept ticking and still nothing.

No answers and no approvals and no guarantees. Huh. What was left to do, but stand up and scream again, and I did, and all I got was my own voice pushing through the canyon. Did I say the right thing? Did I make the right plan? Can you be right and alone at the same time? I don't know. I'll wait.

Because surely someone cares. Someone has to care. Don't people care? At that moment, a tear rolled down my cheek as I sighed, sat down, exhausted, tired, tired of screaming and not being heard. Tired of swinging and missing. Tired of every attempt being the one that might change everything. I was tired of it all. Forget it.

Time to go somewhere else. I wasn't sure where, but let's face it. It doesn't really matter when the only way to go is up. So I turned around and took my first few steps, defeated eyes down at my feet as they marched me away unceremoniously, but then I heard it. Something in front of me. And I immediately lifted my gaze from my shoes

and stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn't believe. What I saw. A sea of people standing there. People that had been gathering this whole time making their way up the canyon as my back was turned as I yelled and yelled. Some I knew. Some I didn't. Some who cared so much that my pain was essentially their pain.

Some I've helped along the way and some who have helped me. Some I've laughed with, some I've cried with, some I've learned from, some who have learned from me. Some who felt exactly as I had, alone, tired, exhausted, some who felt lost but found their way. Others who thought they had everything figured out, but for that moment were lost. Some who felt like they had the weight of the world on their shoulders, others, simply looking for anything to carry. all there, not to hand me answers or a shortcut or any perfect solution. But apparently to remind me that

when the answers aren't in front of you and trust me they won't be more than they will be, you have to trust what's behind you. What brought you to that canyon's ledge? You have to believe in the things you cannot see because you can think you're alone and be loved by many and you can feel like you're losing and be right where you need to be.

Life can seem like it's over when it is in fact just beginning. Those words bouncing off your lips, they don't disappear. In fact, by speaking them, you are giving them life. They become as real as the hand in front of your face and it's up to you to never let that blank space make you think otherwise. To never let what you don't have minimize or mitigate what you do. Because the tricky thing about that abyss beyond the canyon's ledge

is that it's not for reassurance or compliments or ego boosts. No, it's the real deal. It's for carving away at who you might be. And that's, well, that's never going to be easy. In fact, it's always going to make you ask yourself the tough questions. And the hardest part is it will often leave you alone to answer them. But alone for the moment, not for the journey. The echo through the canyons highlights the power of what you have to say.

And the river down below emphasizes how high you've already climbed. And those people behind you, they are your strength. You're a reminder that even in the darkest of moments, the most trying of times you are not alone. Let those dreams leave your lips and fly off into that abyss. Because as hard as it may be to understand in the moment they are in fact making their way back to you.