I have had a glorious life. When you look at it as a number, it seems like it is forever but for me who has lived it, well, it has gone by in a blink of an eye. I am 176 million years old. My name is Gilbert and boy have I been through a circle of life of some sorts.

Let me start off by telling you what I am. I am a mountain. Now I am not the type of mountain that was formed by lava festering up inside me. I am not an angry, volatile mountain. I was created by change. The earth shifted and clashed together creating me, Gilbert the Mountain.

I have loved seeing what the world has to bring. At first, there was nothing. Then there were giant lizards that people would later call dinosaurs. I have seen animals come and go. Some have evolved over the years to adapt to my terrain as well as the elements around me while some that have not.

My outer shell has been home to many animals, species and plants. People have built homes on me and have let me share their years with them. I am never lonely. One of my favorite things about life is seeing the changes of the seasons. I can’t honestly say that there is a favorite season of mine. Fall is great because I get to shed my skin. Winter lets me rejuvenate. Spring makes me new. Summer is about growth. With each season I see the leaves change, rain come and go, freezing temperatures, and the sun rises and gets so blistering hot.

With the changing of seasons, there has been a significant change happening with me. Over the last 20 thousand years water has been getting stuck in my pores. With each season that is changing the water in my pores has been shrinking with freezes and expanding with each thaw. There have been cracks forming on and below my surface.

Over this past spring when the water started to expand part of me broke away. When I broke I realized I was the one moving. My world was spinning. I could not stop. I kept going down, down, down. I realized I was passing all my own trees, flowers and dirt. I saw birds and animals running and fleeing from me. Me. The one they turned to for shelter now turning there backs on me in my time of need. I felt like I was falling forever. I think I blacked out.

When I came to the land was no longer spinning. I realized I could no longer look from one side of the mountain to the other. I was morphing but only to my front and then my back and from my right side to the left and back center. I did a full 360 and all I saw was trees and bushes all around. Nothing else. I realize I am a fraction of the size I once was. I once was a gigantic mountain that was kind and caring looking for all living things on and around me to a large boulder living on something I once was.

It took me a while to get used to my new life as well as my surroundings. I learned to enjoy my life as a boulder. I enjoyed seeing the changing of seasons from a different perspective. There was life now happening under me opposed to on me. I was now providing a home to many species of bugs.

One summer night there was a terrible storm. The wind was howling The rain was falling from the sky with a fury. There was rolling thunder that was so loud it shook the ground. The sky had big flashes of light. The strikes of lightning kept coming closer to me and faster until I was hit. It happened so quickly with the heat it caused me to explode in what seemed like a million different pieces. Once again I was brought down to a fraction of my size. I am now a rock.

It took a while for things to get back to normal around me. I didn’t know how to adjust to my new stature. I realized I am now on the trail towards the bottom of the mountain that many visitors like to come and explore. On this particular day a little boy saw me. He came up to me and started kicking me around. He really was quite the bully. I did not like being pushed around like this. I heard a man shout out “Stop fiddling around and get back here.” Before the little boy left me he picked me up and placed me in his pocket.

It was dark for a while. I heard other kids and the footsteps of the boy. I could not tell where we were traveling to. When the young boy pulled me out of his pocket I was surrounded by all the children. The boy that took me said he found me on the trail. There was another kid that found a leaf and one kid that found a feather.

The man told the boy that I looked like a fascinating rock. I have to inform you that made me fell proud. Then the man did and said something that was unexplainable to me. The man handed the child a hammer and said, “Now let’s see what the rock looks inside.” Before I knew it the boy was pounding away. I had crumbled to tiny itsy little bits.

I once was a mighty mountain. I am now so small I would now be considered a piece of dirt. I am a piece of dirt that was brushed aside and thrown to the ground. After much consideration I am OK with what I have become. I am now the foundation of the earth. I can still see the changing seasons pass. I will lay dormant here and wait for the ground to shift and the landscape to change because I know with time and patience I will become a mighty mountain again.