Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Trekking Through Life

Everyone experiences angst in life at one point or the other. I am no different, no matter how ‘strong’ I am perceived to be. My 30th birthday is fast approaching and I am going through the seven stages of grief, sometimes all at once. My first thought about my upcoming birthday was, “Am I really 30?” This captures disbelief and denial. Then I move to rationalization, “Well, I’m 30 now so I can skip that workout today, my rest is more important.” The anger and depression surfaces sporadically these days taking me by surprise as I am usually on top of life. Sometimes I tell myself, “You’re 30 and you haven’t accomplished all you have wanted to do or become who you have wanted to become, you really suck at life.” While this is clearly not true, turning a birthday with a 0 at the end has a way of making you feel insignificant while taking stock of life. Society and culture is very hard on human beings.

Life in America often feels like a Facebook timeline and if you are not where the majority are at the moment, then you are the outlier, which I have been most of my life. When I look back ten years, ‘when I was an undergrad’, I truly don’t think I  thought at the time that I would be where I am at currently. After all, who does possess the gift of foresight? Truth is, I have accomplished more than I ever thought possible in my 30 years, especially given some difficult circumstances. These accomplishments never seem to diminish my need to experience or accomplish more. Perhaps this is my naivety at life or youthful exuberance attempting to sow its oats. Why am I always hungry for more? Why does life have those moments when you question everything? In my early to mid 20’s it was one phase after the next and my doey eyed self innocently ooed and awed at the experiences of life. It was way beyond my imagination and I miss that feeling. Now all I feel is too cautious and wise and smothered in adult decision fatigue.

What does one do when starving for inspiration in this life? Run a marathon? Been there, done that. Well, this gal and her best friend of 10 years have thought of something outlandish to do to ‘ring in our thirties.’ We probably shouldn’t do this either. I’m likely not healthy enough to do it. Ok, for now I am going to start checking that at the door. So yeah, we are climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in February 2016. We said we would do this for a long time now and we finally just dedicated ourselves to it. No this is not a Cheryl Strayed or Eat, Pray, Love moment. Leave that stuff for the movies, plus let's be real, only one of these was a good book.  


This is just the beginning, and we have six months to go. So why do this if all I am seeking is inspiration? Because sometimes in life you just have to do things for yourself and your friendships. You have to dig deep and find out what you’re made of, be brave enough to start something, and tough enough to finish it. Also, for bragging rights and to fulfill that need to experience and accomplish. And who knows, maybe this is just what I need to get back on the inspiration track.
So here we go. And first things first. I need hiking boots. More on that later. I must finish this.
-a-