Only Crabs Walk Backwards

Today is my 31st birthday. As many people do on their birthday, I find myself looking back over the past year – reflecting on all that has happened. I used to look at in terms of accomplishments versus failures. Often my failures won. It was all the things I had planned on doing that for whatever reason was unable to achieve. This year is different. Too be honest I’m not even sure what my initial list of potential accomplishments for the year was. Somewhere along the way that no longer seemed important. Life has so many other obstacles and things thrown at us, why create our own potential road of failures? Perhaps I realized this in February when our family lost a close friend, or maybe I realized it sooner, who knows. This year, was a major year of growth for me.

I had a number of ups and downs, but for the first time, I felt like I was able to handle things well. I was able to step back, outside of my depression and BPD and see things in a more rational manner, at the same time keeping my watchful eye and empathetic view open to whatever possibilities would come my way. Every opportunity, whether is was a success or failure was a moment of growth, an opportunity from which to learn. I am creating myself. I have realized at last that no one else can do this for me. I have also come to realize that there really is a force of some sort out there, a force much greater than you or me. To some this force may be a god and to others it may be something else, no matter what it is about having faith. Miracles happen when the road of impossibility meets the road of reality.

I’ve given up trying to define myself, and am more prepared to live in the moment. I’ve started understanding that separating myself from my roles makes no sense. I am a mother, a wife, a student, a daughter...these are the things that help define who I am. Finding myself doesn’t mean losing this things or taking a break from them, it means embracing them.

I think one of the biggest things changes had come from learning how to live in the present moment. I am no longer stuck on yesterday. Only crabs go backwards. The rest of us move forward into tomorrow, but we do so in the moment, living today. We do so by letting life happen through the choice we make of through the happenings that are decide for us. We deal with it, we learn from it and we grow.

I went to a wedding in late July this year and a conversation started about why we do the things we do. Much of the conversation focused around the concept of people pleasing. A few people said they are now living for themselves and no longer concerned about doing things to please others. I can see this, I can see how it would make things easier, however, I can also see how damaging this may become. If we don’t find the balancing between pleasing ourselves and others live may become a very lonely place. Compromise, which I have never been that good at, helps to strike a balance. Doing things for others or because others want us to is a way of gaining new experiences and a way of giving bits of ourselves to them.

My meds are working well, mentally. Physically there is still work to be done, but all in time. This is too is an area that I need to live with, I must find a place for it and work with it instead of trying to work around it. I hope to start a fibromyalgia clinic soon. I believe that it will be three days a week. I also hope to start that life skills course that I wrote about last year. It never did happen. Perhaps the timing was wrong. Either way, we will see what happens come September.

I am currently on holidays with my family. We just spend a week camping in Waterton National Park. It was amazing. We went to Glacier National Park on Wednesday. It was beautiful. There we did a spontaneous hike at Logan’s Pass (Hidden Lake Trail). Without the proper footwear or braces for my joints, it was difficult, but I did it. It was about 2.4km and 460 feet (straight up many stairs and snowy paths). We went up a bit higher to look out at the view, it was breathtaking. This is life – reaching new heights and overcoming obstacles or barriers to see the view.

Thursday was an eye opening day. I realized that if you look away for just a second, your whole world can change. We were at Blackfoot falls, a small hike up from Red Walk Canyon, playing down by the water. Suddenly, Doodles was yelling. Hubby was up an in the water before my mind had a chance to truly register what was happening. Doodles had slipped on a wet rock and was now hanging on to another rock for dear life as the water tried to pull him towards to raging falls. In that single moment, I could have lost my son, my husband or both. I knew than that we had an angle watching over us. I knew than that nothing should ever be taken for granted. Later that day as we driving back to our tent, I looked behind me and saw the angle in the clouds. I was silent and I thanked God for sending that angle to protect my family and everyone else at those falls.

My true accomplishment this year happened on August 1st. I climbed a mountain, literally. At nine in the morning I boarded a boat and by nine thirtyish I had taken my first step on the path to climbing Crypt Lake, an 8.7KM trail gaining 2,300ft in elevation. The hardest hike that I have done in years. I was the last one up as I had predicted, but I overcame my mental barriers – self doubt, fear of heights – and I outlasted my physical pain. My family cheered me on and believed in me, when I found it hard to believe in myself. To stand there at the top, knowing how hard I’d pushed myself, looking at the moments when I felt like I couldn’t do it, sick to the point of nausea along the path, I persisted. I had to do this, nor for my family, but for myself. I needed to know that anything was possible if I put my mind to it, if I took things one-step at a time and paced myself. It worked. One moment of panic on the way down as I sat at the end of the tunnel frozen with fear above the latter and the rest suddenly a blissful journey. I had done this. Not for anyone else, but for myself.

This I hope will be my year to overcome these obstacles, to look past my fear and have the courage to embrace it and use it. Failure only happens when you allow yourself to fall down without getting back up to try again or to try something altogether new.