And So I Climb...

By Jeffrey Kraynak

"And So I Climb..." is a collection of the lessons and realizations that I have come to in the months, and now years, of reflection and growth following the ending of an engagement. It covers the initial descent and how important it is to let pain affect you, to not block it out. It discusses how much to let it affect you and the difference between conscious change and being changed. The interplay of opinions, group mentality, open-mindedness, communication, and forgiveness are all considered in terms of being able to see the big picture and recognizing everyone's place along the continuum of any situation. Everything from why nice guys finish last to why it is so important for couples to argue are considered and reflected upon. It is not merely a book for couples and relationships, however. It is an exploration of emotion and how to deal with life's general hardships. And in the end, having traveled upon this journey with me, one should be able to recognize the pros and pitfalls of working through turbulent times and not fear them, but understand and realize that more often than not it is those trying times that offer us the greatest opportunity for growth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeffrey Kraynak
• Release date: Nov 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9780988611115

Jeffrey Kraynak

Jeffrey Kraynak is a screenwriter, poet, photographer, and chemist in New York City. His screenplays have had award-winning acceptance into film festivals internationally. He has also recently published a book of poetry, illustrated by his brother, about what it would be like if nature could do to us what we have been doing to it titled "Animal Crackers".

Book preview

And So I Climb…

By Jeffrey Kraynak

Copyright 2013 Jeffrey Kraynak

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Prologue

The Best Laid Plans…

A Fall From Grace

Change For The Worse, Change For The Better

Long Is The Way And Hard

The Big Picture

Walking The Line

As Stimulating As Black Coffee, And Just As Hard To Sleep After

Ascension To Divinity…

Apparently It Is All You Need

A View From The Top

Epilogue: Final Thoughts

Prologue

It is not surprising that the writing of this book has come with some difficulty. Recounting struggle and revisiting the lowest point in your life is never easy. But that wasn’t the problem. It was the message and how to tell it. This book, much like a life, and fittingly so, has been built up, torn down, and re-forged again and again; only to be stripped down, reevaluated, and pieced back together for the intention of growth and improvement.

I started with the notion of generalization. It began with a glossed-over presentation of theory and perspective, meant to be a broad-range application to various situations. But it felt generic. Something was missing. It then evolved to a step-by-step process of one’s descent, education, and rise. And so it was closer… closer to where I wanted it, but still not quite there. It still seemed too basic. Something was still missing. It was back to the drawing board with two documents of notes and text. Here the truth of colloquialisms rang clear. Third time’s a charm, or so I hoped, because I realized what was missing.

Unfortunately it tends to be something absent in many conversations. It is often omitted in one’s answers or reactions. People ask for it, but do not like when they receive it. The missing piece was honesty. I realized that if I were to speak of all that I have learned, all the clarity that I have come to find, then I needed to lay out with an unrestrained tongue the events and mistakes that led me to such. So that is where I begin, since, as Thomas Jefferson once said, Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

The Best Laid Plans…

I never intended on writing something so personal. But I also never intended on any of the contents of what is about to follow to happen either. Perhaps it was out of self-preservation or privacy that my initial attempts at this were to merely jump to the end, to offer the philosophies and mentalities that I have grown to embrace as mere commentary. But as I said, that would not be honest. And to be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful, according to Edward R. Murrow. The reader needed to be able to make up his or her own mind, to listen or to ignore. One of the most important ideas that I have come to know is that of the continuum. This will be discussed in far greater detail later, but for now, suffice to say that opinions will differ.

I do not expect everyone who reads these pages to be in agreement. I do not expect everyone to think that I am wise. I do not even expect everyone to think that I am a good person. But I would hope that the theory of ideals stands out more prominently than the dissertation of details. I would hope that a few pages of darkness will not overshadow the multiple chapters of enlightenment. But I have hoped in the past, and it does not always come true.

I hoped once for happiness, for a love that would last eternal. And at one point, I thought that I had found it. It was my last year of college and her second. I was living in a primarily sophomore dorm. Wanting a room to myself, I took a buyout single, paying a little more for room and board, but getting an entire room to myself. One of the only dorms offering this was the afore-mentioned sophomore-laden one in which I found myself residing. But there were good people there. Many friendships were forged, some just as strong even today. Others no longer remain; some due to mere distance and the natural progression out of touch, while others were separated via conscious decision. But before any of that, before the weight of life and real-world issues, we were still in the utopian environment of university.

Two strangers became friends. Two friends shared a midnight walk. Two hearts became one during the course of a four-year courtship. It was almost like it was meant to be. Even though I do not believe in such concepts, there is an amusing story which does lend support.

Jump back one year, before we even knew each other existed. It was her freshman year and my senior. I was in my room, which overlooked the central lawn between dorms, with one of my roommates who technically was not a roommate, at least according to the school. He was just squatting with us, a concept that would later repeat itself the following year with my buyout single. But I digress. He had downloaded the sound clip from ‘Back to the Future’ when George McFly practices his line of Hey you, get your damn hands off her with Marty. We had our speakers pointed out the window and hit play every time some unsuspecting couple walked by holding hands. We received many amused looks from those who found it funny. We ourselves found it hilarious. But not everyone did.

One such target of ours, knowing which dorm she was walking past, turned to her boyfriend at the time and uttered an annoyed, stupid seniors. That senior was me. And that freshman girl, a target of our amusement, not even a sparkle in my eye, would later