The First Time I Saw Mt. Everest
I remember the first time I saw Mt. Everest. It was after an extremely brutal day of trekking. The altitude was really getting to me. I was last in the group, per usual and because I was last my guide Geljen stayed back with me.
We approached a rest stop where a few locals were selling bottled water, candy bars, and Pringles. I marveled at how women who reminded me of my mom climbed to these places and waited to sell a couple of candy bars to trekkers. I bought a KitKat from an auntie who smiled at me and offered a nice flat rock for me to sit my pack down.
Geljen turns to me and points to a small window behind the trees “There’s Everest”.
Mid bite into my KitKat tears welled up in my eyes. I wasn’t expecting to feel so many emotions. I thought about how many people would never see this mountain. How many people had sacrificed so much to give me opportunities to do life differently, to not be chained by poverty, to live?
How many people who looked like me would never get an opportunity like this? How in this lifetime I had the chance to defy the odds.
How in this lifetime I was out here, doing it.
Through glistening eyes, I looked at Everest. I was struck by how normal it was. How it looked like another mountain, just like many of the other beautiful mountains we’ve passed. It even seemed small sitting in the distance. I could feel the obsession of the other trekkers around me. Eyes fixated on it, gazing at it, pointing, capturing it on their phones. I thought about how I was one of those trekkers too. I thought about how we prize things for being the tallest, biggest, and most, and how much beauty we miss when we are only looking for "the best". How we make sense of the world by finding the extremes, and how many things will never be #1.
Starting to feel self-conscious of my tears I put on my sunglasses and let myself cry. For a few minutes, I savored that moment and my KitKat along with it.
With my heart happy, mind satisfied, legs tired, and nose filled with snot I took out a tissue. I pretended to blow my nose to wipe away my tears, took a sip of water, and thanked Auntie for watching my bag. As I walked away, I smiled to myself thinking how it was just a normal day for her selling KitKats.