Arduous

Arduous. It feels like your tongue is tied in knots. You know what you want to say in your heart, but when the words reach your lips, they turn into a jumble of fuzzy syllables. It’s like having a pebble in your mouth; you want to spit it out, but it’s stuck there, neither coming up nor going down. Some books are arduous to read. Not because the words are difficult, but because every sentence is so heavy. You have to stop, digest the previous sentence completely, before you can move on. It’s like eating a very hard candy; you can’t bite it, you can only slowly let it dissolve on your tongue. Finishing a page often feels more tiring than running a lap around a track. But strangely, the most arduous books often leave the deepest mark on your heart. Because you put in the effort, you remember. Some days are arduous to live through. It’s not about major events, no storms, no life-or-death situations, but every step just feels like a struggle. Like walking a long distance in ill-fitting shoes; your heel is rubbed raw, but you can’t take off your shoes because the journey isn’t over. On those days, you start to doubt if you’re on the wrong path, if you’re not trying hard enough, if you shouldn’t have set out at all. But later, you realize that arduousness itself is a form of progress. You think you’re just going in circles, but in reality, you’re pushing through a thick fog. Once the fog clears, you’ll see how far you’ve come. Some words are arduous to hear. Not because the other person said something harsh, but because those words hit something you’ve been unwilling to face. You don’t want to hear them, but you have to; you want to retort, but you can’t. That kind of arduousness feels like a needle, slowly and precisely piercing your most vulnerable spot.