I went hiking yesterday. It did not go well.
My water bladder didn’t seal right (my fault) so I lost half my water, which was comfortably all over my backside leaking from my backpack. It was really sunny and hot, even at 8,600 ft. above sea level. I got altitude sickness. I took a wrong trail and didn’t do the loop I intended, I ended up at a dead end. I had to backtrack where I didn’t want to. I read the map wrong.
It was messy, and I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I wanted to.
My expectations were high on getting out of the house yesterday and nothing met the standard.
I went to a place called Moose Meadows and I saw NO Moose!
This is life.
The hard thing about life in a Pandemic is wanting to accomplish so much and being trapped by a universe in chaos. We want to get a lot done, but we feel like sitting on the couch binge-watching Ozark and eating cheese poofs.
We’re not able to dive into fun as often because we are at home (for good reason) so every time we go out we want everything to be perfect, to be magical, to give us that jolt of joy we so desperately want.
So we get disappointed when things go wrong, even if it’s our own fault.
We shouldn’t be upset at ourselves or the universe. We all are climbing mountains, and we all are fighting a storm.
My mountain yesterday was literally a small mountain, with minimal elevation gain. But I climbed that mountain, even if it was messy.
I did SOMETHING to aid myself, for my health, for my joy. I didn’t win a marathon or do it with much grace, but I did it. In this time of weird and feeling trapped and not having much to work with, doing something is empowering.
Climb mountains, right now, even if they are small, and take pride in that. Do a 7-minute work out. Fold Laundry. Change your sheets. Cook dinner. All of those are mountains you are climbing. And be oh so kind about it if you don’t do it just right, or if you don’t get every mountain conquered. It’s ok.
Nothing in a Pandemic, a global one, is normal, so it’s ok not to have everything else normal. It’s ok not to be as productive or successful. It’s ok to be patient and sleep more, and put on a few pounds. All of this is ok.
While in this, I hope you have community and support and love to see this through and that mountains are easy to conquer.
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