To the Top of the Mountain

I love hiking.  Meandering through lush vegetation, the sun peaking through the trees and brushing up against the understory.  Glistening leaves wave hi as I walk by. A cool air sweeps around my body, and at the perfect moment my soul takes a peaceful sigh in the presence of nature. Yeah! What I wouldn’t give to be back packing through the hills of the NC Appalachians right now.

I sit here in my mid-life (I guess “they” call it that) month thinking about all the paths I have ambled, paraded, shuffled, and tripped down in my first forty years. Holy smoley! Life sure has shown me thickets and curvaceous roads; has given me intersections where I have been seemingly at a stand still for days months. This last year has been a complete and utter test of faith and of myself. By sheer determination, on top of a mountain actually, I took a leap of faith rationalizing if my life should change drastically from that which it has been for the majority of my years.  (insert big sigh)  Why was I up on that mountain?  I don’t know if that question is as important as how I got there.  I didn’t get there alone, but I was the one that walked my butt up to the summit – to the place where it all culminated.  Now WTF am I going to do?

I started this post 21 days ago.  The words I couldn’t express locked away in my head and heart.  I’m hurting, still.  Not in the way people in my situation normally hurt (I have heard).  I’ve skipped steps in this process, or more so, perhaps, I’m doing it out of order.  No doubt this will take time to overcome and work through.  Work through…hmmm, work through.  My inner dialogue has been on overdrive since – well I can’t pin point it, but for a long time.  I didn’t listen to my intuition. Geesh, how many times!?!  I freakin have quotes all over the place about it – intuition that is.

…and that is precisely what I have done my whole life.  I justified and tried to explain away everything, and mainly the person I did that to was myself.  And not because someone told me to, but because that is who I was – WAS.  I spent my past life worrying and wondering what everyone else thought…and when I say everyone, I mean those who are closest to me…doing what they wanted me to do.  You know what I realized on top of that mountain?  They did not “make” me do anything.  Just like I walked myself up to the top on that mountain, I made choices based on “my” thoughts about what I perceived others wanted of me.  Have you heard this?

“Sometimes we are our own worst enemies.”

Note to self – Here is the good news:

You still have the ability to make good choices, wise choices, forward-moving, life changing choices.  You have the ability to be YOU and not you for someone else but for you, only.

My perspective has to change.  My self talk has to deviate from what my inner Missababe would normally say.  I climbed the mountain that day and have been climbing an escarpment for far longer than I realized.  So, on this eve, of the eve, of the eve of my 40th (29th hehe) birthday I vow to right myself and keep moving on. 🙂 Like Vince Lombardi said:

With determination and will, summit after summit will be attained – because I am not just going to fall there….It’s not possible.  I’m going to continue to hike like my life depends on it!

And a few memes never hurt: follow me on 1carolinacharm (Twitter) & kbcmomma (IG)

Taking the Rope

I’m not one to talk about my problems.   I’ve hidden a lot of secrets or aspects of my life from friends over the years.  There were a select few I let into the madness, but on a whole I allowed myself to let the enemy keep me alone – to be confined to my own padded room,  perhaps, or in a deep dungeon where the walls weren’t able to be climbed. Many times I felt like this: 

However, in the last three weeks I have been learning to break out of that darkness.  I have welcomed the breakdowns, and somehow I found a rope to indeed pull myself up out of the abyss.  Actually, I found several ropes. (insert gratitude)  Sometimes lifesaving devices are material, cold metal objects,  drugs, a phone call….mine have been in the form of words – words that were said out of love, kindness, and concern.  I sit here chuckling at one such comment.  If I could fold up all of my “philosophy bingo cards” (see my last post) and store them away for future posterity, one I would read over and over again came not from a friend.  It came not from anyone I knew well, but from my new doctor whom I now hold in high regard.  She proclaimed: 

I can’t wait to see you on the other side of this.   If anything,  you have the chance to be anything,  do anything, go anywhere you want.   You are a new person and you will find her.  If you want to change who you are you can. Now is your chance.   If you want to be a badass,  you can be a badass…

Yes!   She said that to me.   We laughed and I cried a little, and I knew in that moment she was right.   I remembered a quote I had seen a week or so earlier and had contemplated posting but thought it revealed too much of me.   I think it is time to be honest with myself…maybe I can be a badass.   I went back and found the screenshot which is dated Nov. 23.  Almost a month later,  I think it is time to start using my life lines…

I still have mountains to climb and valleys to crawl out of during this life event. I know, however,  that all I have to do is grab on to any of the numerous ropes thrown out by my lifesavers and I will be OK.   I am strong,  as strong as all the ropes combined.