A year in a day

In the life of IntotheHills.

I wake with pain, it seems an ever-present constant now, just the level changes for variety. It can be all consuming, steal all of my focus, all of my plans. it's a hard weight to push aside.
I lay there for a while, for too long doing nothing, simply being. Slowly I move, too little to even call stretching, but bit by bit I come alive. I rise and make my way (trying not to wake the house) out of the bedroom. A wistful smile, sadness mixed with blessing, as there under the stairs where once a beautiful white dog lay waiting for me is an empty bed now waiting to be filled. I make my way upstairs to the couch via the coffee machine. I hear the mad clattering of tiny bounding paws and my reverie is broken by the unique joy that only a little puppy can bring into a life. Missy jumps into my lap with an exuberance that makes me think she's been at the espresso.

Opening the curtains I have a plan for the day but everything is a fog. I simply can't see the way ahead. I look at the forecast - it's grim, I look at another, it's slightly better. I decide to base my day on this. A little optimism can go a long way.

Parked up and striding out I'm still unsure what the day will bring, but I'm trying. Some days that's the only win I can aim for. Some days I fail at even that. I'm racked with doubts, there are glimpses and moments, enough just enough, to draw me on, but the tops and my aspirations for the day remain out of sight. With a perseverance some might call stubborn I push on hoping that things will get better.
Around Elmhow, maybe a third of the way in distance but definitely a fraction of the way in endeavour, I put away the sticks. They've been a comfort and (literally) a crutch but they risk becoming a badge. From here I know I need to do this myself.
Ahead of me I see two people, one on a zig and his partner on a zagg and imperceptibly I quicken my pace. This early in the day I'm still foolish enough to think the competition might be with anyone other than myself. 
I push and I climb and at the 450 m contour I break out on the traverse. I can see the other climbers continuing to rise above me and the little voice inside tells me "enough, now sit, wait and watch". Sure enough all too soon they're cragfast and I know that I must help. Fortunately shouted words and directions, a little local knowledge, is all it takes to help them on their way. Lessons learnt all round. It's good to be helping folk again

The path to the foot of The Climb is tough and treacherous, much more so than I remember. I stumble, I slip, I sit a while. I rise, I push on. I know where I'm going and yet I have a deep foreboding sense of being lost.

And now I'm here stood up high under a climb I know well. A climb I no longer know if I can do. I'm impatient to know, the not knowing is eating me away bit by bit. 
There's an easy option to start on the left but the true test lies in taking the line next to the abyss on the right. The line I've always taken with ease. I reach up, I'm rushing towards knowing, hoping knowing will put the pain and the worry and the doubts behind me. Everyone secretly hopes there's a silver bullet for their demons. I pull, I push, my feet leave the ground and then just as quickly I slip and for a moment I'm gone...
... But today isn't the day, it isn't just this one day, it's all the days that have been before. I hold fast and lower myself back to the start. Truth be known I wasn't really ready, I wasn't centred, I wasn't focused, I wasn't yet me. 
For a pathetic moment I think there'd be worse ways to go. Then I remember dear dear Tony choosing to let go and bow my head, there are indeed worse ways to go, I remember Nan's kind release, a far better way to go, and I'm ashamed. I choose to play and work here, I need to honour that choice with my best me.

I sit for a while with this painfully found nearly wisdom. I take stock - I put another jacket on, look after my core, and then as I warm I spread my hands beneath me against the rock. I feel the rugosities, the veins, the sharp quartz, the treacherous loose lichen. The solidity, the fragility, the rounded edges and the sharp jagged spikes. I breathe in, out, further in and further out. I listen, I smell, slowly I open my eyes and look, really look. I commune. I am. I am becomes I'm ready.
I pull and I push. My feet lift off the ground and I move up with grace. This is the right time, the right way, this is a thing that I can do. I move only when my weight is right, the invincibile over reaching of youth replaced with a cautious confidence wrapped in a sense of consequence. 
At the steep little crux of the climb, oh so nearly at the end of the day, I stop. I know this has been in the back of my mind ever since this day began. All said and done it's maybe 30 ft of climbing that should be laughingly within my ability, yet somehow it threatens to be insurmountable. This isn't the time to pause and ponder this is a time to simply be who I am meant to be. Foot follows hand like tick follows tock, upward, easily, I think I hear laughter. I cross the little ledge not stopping as the pinnacles beckon one last challenge in triumphant glee. 

The summit is but a short stroll away. Like a veteran mountaineer I know that this is not the job done. Like a novice philosopher I'm beginning to know that some things are never truly done. At what should be the day's highpoint squally winds slice into me with the switchblade sharpness of self-doubt and hill cloud rolls in with a depression grey sense of loss. But... through this day I've learnt some lessons. I've learnt to brace myself against those winds. I've learnt to look for the way forward in the gaps in the clouds. I've learnt that this too will pass. I hold fast and I'm rewarded with the sort of moment that only those who really go looking ever get to see. 

It's a long journey back. Far far longer than I ever thought it could be. On the way there are sharp stabbing moments of pain and I guess there probably always will be in my days now. But..there are also moments where I know that I'm back where I belong. As this long long day draws to a close I'm finally excited to think of the days ahead again.