Acceptance

"and if I only could, I'd make a deal with God
and get him to swap our places"

6 years, 2190 moments, more than a few words. The occasional passable photograph.

I simply didn't have the energy for a pre-dawn start, the forecast was the final nail in that plan, I awoke rolled over and got three more much needed hours of sleep.
But waking again I knew that the mountains were calling - some of these blip milestones have cemented themselves into my subconscious as the days when a reckoning should be made, when blessings should be counted and debts acknowledged.

Heading upward, into the uncertain, nature making itself known, consequences conspicuous - these are the moments that bring me the truest focus.

In trying to write more this year I've conversely written less here, so forgive me if my mutterings seem even more obtuse than usual - my relationship with the flow of time is at best a little disjointed these days - too much looking into the past and wondering about the future, my mindful self has struggled to look for the real truth to be found in the now.

I've pondered much this year about Freeze, Flight, Fight as I've searched within myself for words of understanding. I've read that these three responses apply to all of life - but how would we define what it is to be human, what lifts us above the animal world if it's not our intellect, our ability to be more than that automatic response. The physical hasn't been the whole of it, most of it, or possibly even any. The truth, as it often does has lain in the emotion of it, the psychology, the belief. Some might say the Soul.

I've spent a lifetime falling firmly into the last of those F's. Looking through time I can hear glass shattering in cinematic slow motion all around me as I take that fateful call and lash out at every inanimate thing I can find. I can still feel the pain in a little boy's shoulders as he gets up one more time. I see a policeman covering my arm with his jacket as the verdict is read out. I sense an anxious fear every time I push too far in the gym hoping for a final fixing. All of these moments carried forever. Flowing into and out of, shaping now.

Far far harder than fighting has been finding an acceptance. Accepting that there are things I'll probably never be able to make a peace with. Slowly I've learnt to accept the physical pain, the consequence of my choices. When it flares along my nerves I now know to pause and give thanks - it hurts because I'm able to be here, it's the sharp shrill reminder of what's not lost. I pause, I regather, I even smile a wry smile.
But, always, well all too often, but.

On a day like today, walking into the clouds with only my ghosts for company it's hard to accept that this version of life is only happening because Mum is no longer here. There were a multiverse of other possibilities, but this life will forever circle a black star, a moment in time who's gravity it's impossible to escape - each step forward shaped and shaded by the long shadow of that terrible event. And the dichotomy therein; To love the life I now live means finding a way to accept events I'd give anything to change. Walking into a storm on a knife edge ridge seems easy escapism. As ever the mountains force focus, quiet the turmoil, bring solace. Perhaps that's all there should be. Perhaps it's enough to be here, be now. I carry Mum with me on each and every of these days. Perhaps in the mountains I'll find my way to an acceptance of that.