I’ve been writing a lot about doing the stairs at my office building.  I’ve done it several times now, with my current goal being to get farther and farther without gasping for breath.  I took another staircase the other day, and discovered a 25th floor that wasn’t available in the staircase that I had been doing.  So, for the past two days, I’ve been doing that staircase.

Yesterday, I climbed from 13 to 25 and back down to 3.  I then rode the elevator back up.  Today, I climbed from 13 to 25 and back down to 2 (as far as I can go).  I then decided, “what the heck,” and climbed back up to 5.  And this is where I had to stop and laugh at my life.

I sometimes think that God is just screwing with me.  I do all of this and get to the fifth floor sweating and dreaming of catching the elevator back up.  But oh no.  That would be too easy.  Not all of the elevators have access to all of the floors, and sometimes at night, the cleaning crew shuts down some of the elevators so that they can, well, clean them.  Uh-huh, you’re probably starting to get the picture.  All of the elevators to the 5th floor were shut down.  Hence the laughter.  My only choices were to climb back up to 13 or walk back down to 3 and catch the elevator there.  You can guess my decision - I sure as hell wasn’t going to climb back up to 13.  Sometimes all you can do is laugh.

When I got back to my department, one of my co-workers immediately informed me that my face matched my shirt (which was bright pink).  I was tired, hot, and sweaty, but felt good about myself.  But I want to know, it is going to get easier right?  The more and more I do it, the easier it’s going to get, right?  If I sound like a desparate woman, it’s because I am.  I’m dreaming of the day that I can make it up these stairs without ending up gasping like a birthing hippo by the time I do four floors!