I take a brick and lay it down below my feet. I take a chance and step down hoping I will stand yet fearing I will sink down to the nothingness below. Will I fall fast or slow I do not know.

What will I find at the bottom? Or is there no bottom? Will I just fall forever with nothing and no one to catch me?

I step onto the brick and at the lightest touch it falls just as I feared. But in my fear, I didn’t put my whole weight down, and so I stand. I haven’t fallen but I haven’t gotten anywhere either. Still here, where I was before in my nonlife.

I spend a lifetime brick by brick. I lay them down and they fall. Never confident enough to take a step and never creating anything secure enough to stand on.

Then one day I lay a brick. I look at it for a while. I examine it. I crouch down and gather some dirt from beneath my feet that I didn’t even know was there. I mix it with some water and make some clay. It’s sticky and wet, but as it begins to dry it hardens on my fingers. I look at that brick once again and have a thought.

I make some more clay and press it to one side of that brick and then press another brick into it and I hold it there. It takes some strength, and my weakened muscles begin to burn as I crouch down and press the bricks together for what feels like an eternity. As the clay dries, I let it go and with excitement for the first time in my existence I have two bricks laid out before me.

I consider my options. I can try and stand on these two bricks or I can lay more bricks down. The first option seems to be a foolish one, but my weakened muscles are now sore and tired from holding the first two bricks together.

What should I do?

I take another brick, and I make some more clay and with all the strength that I can find I attach another brick to the two already before me. With newfound confidence I step upon the bricks, so tired and alone. Ready to move forward now and exhausted but excited for the road ahead.

And as I step, I feel the bricks unsteady underneath the weight of my foot. They begin to fall and I with them. I reach out but no one is there to hold my hand and I stumble and fall. Clinging to the piece of ground that I have stood throughout my existence, I find my way back up to standing. Defeated and tired I lay down on this dirty plot of nonlife that I stand on and I sleep.

When I wake up, it’s as if I didn’t sleep at all. My muscles ache from a lifetime of going nowhere and now I have cuts on my hands from the bricks and my skin is dry and brittle from the clay. My mind is in a fog from endless years of trying to think my way forward and my heart is broken just a little bit more than it was before.

So now what? I will never give up. I don’t even know why. I don’t know where this hope comes from inside of me but the pool of it never seems to run dry. It gives me the strength to try again. This time I get five bricks all attached by dried clay. I can’t go on and so I rest. I awake and add 6 more and keep going.

My energy has replenished as my hope increases and excitement for what is ahead fills me. Day by day I create a path that is stable and secure. And one day I realize that building that path has moved me down it without trying or wondering or fearing my next step. I look behind and I can no longer see the nonlife I used to live on. I am somewhere new, and I don’t know where I am or where this path is going.

But I go on.