My Everest:
What’s your Everest, the highest mountain on earth, a metaphor for a goal so big that it scares you to speak it out loud? That goal that takes more than a season, a year or maybe takes a lifetime to even accomplish. (Colleen Rue; The Voice of the Mountain)
A year ago, I clicked on a link and heard this question posed as I watched a clip of an endurance event called Everesting 29029. It looked so hard and yet, somehow possible. Thirty-six hours to climb up a mountain, take a gondola down, and repeat until climb 29029 thousand feet, the elevation of the highest Mountain in the world…Mount Everest.
I have faced so many “hard” things in my 59 years, why would I choose to add one more “hard thing” to my life? Well…Simply because this is a hard thing that I get to choose.
I have carried the heavy burden of childhood abuse and emotional neglect that no child should ever have to experience or carry. Like most victims, I would still report, “it wasn’t that bad,” despite the welts and bruises on my legs. I carried the heavy secrets of what went on behind the still life of the faded Olan Mills’ portraits hanging on the walls of my childhood home. A frozen half smile masking the fear and anxiety of living in a house of anger, unpredictability, and chaos.
The home I lived in was chaotic and unpredictable. I was scared most of the time. I lived in fear because I had no idea which mommy, I would find roaming through the house or lounging on the sofa. Will she be calm and friendly or cold and angry. Truthfully, it doesn’t matter which mommy showed up because I couldn’t trust either of them. The only thing consistent about her is her unpredictability.
When she said “jump,” I would always ask, “how high?” It never occurred to me, until I was much older, to ask “why?” I continued to jump through the hoops as they got higher and higher until I could no longer jump. You see, I could never jump high enough, and presumed that it was because I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t a good enough daughter, student, athlete, sister, or friend. I was convinced that even my cat would snub me to sleep and purr upon my sister’s bed as they curled up together while I slept restlessly alone.
So, one day when my mother poked me in the back as I looked into our powder room mirror and said, “You better watch it you are getting a little thick in the waist!” I thought “finally a way to her heart.” I couldn’t make myself smarter, or prettier, more lovable, but I could lose weight! I could lose weight, and then she would be happy with me. I would be worthy of her love, support, and attention. Maybe I would finally be enough?
I made the choice to drop a few pounds in hopes of pleasing my mother. What I didn’t choose was to step onto a lifelong path of anorexia. Eating disorders, to paraphrase renowned eating disorder expert Dr. Cynthia Bulik PhD. not a choice. Once an individual begins the first diet, their unique biology, genetics, psycho-social and history, sets them on a path they never intended to travel. No one choses the deadliest of all mental illnesses. Those with eating disorders have a 57% greater risk of dying from suicide than peers without the illness. At least one person will die each hour because of an eating disorder.
I did not choose this deadly illness, but it chose me. It chose me as a young adolescent, and it chose me again as a 47-year-old woman after almost twenty years of recovery.
The event is equal parts physical, mental and spiritual. I would argue that the mental part is by far the hardest part, while spiritual resilience is birthed or re-born with each decision to turn left and keep on climbing. The beauty of the event is that it isn’t a race with age group or gender winners, it is simply you against you, against the mountain, against the clock. Each step brings you closer to discovering your strengths and acknowledging your weaknesses. Yes, we all have weaknesses, and it is in those moments that the community lifts you and lends you a bit of strength.
Of course, the goal, for most, is to summit 29029 feet and put on the coveted red hat. There are others whose goal is simply completing the training and 1 lap, 4 laps, 6 laps or 10 laps. Regardless of elevation gained, all are closer to the summit than those who never stepped up to the mountain.
Some of the greatest cheers erupted for a fellow climber who completed 4 laps, the elevation of Antarctica’s Mt. Kosciusko. Tears of joy and support poured out for her at the base as she branded the board with the Everesting logo. This was her Everest and a metaphor for all the “hard,” she didn’t choose in her life, and her own Everest conquered.
Like my fellow climber, I have faced many “hards” that I didn’t get to choose. I didn’t choose a traumatic childhood, I didn’t choose to battle anorexia since I was 14 years old, I didn’t choose infertility, or pregnancies lost, and no one ever choose to battle anxiety and depression. Life is filled with challenges for all of us that we don’t get to choose. Everesting 29029 was a challenge or “hard” that I got to choose, and my sons chose this hard to support me and discover just how strong they are at doing hard things.
Both men left everything they had out on that mountain, and I couldn’t be prouder of them and their efforts. Again, it isn’t about how high you climb, but that you keep climbing. And keep climbing they did, finding their Everest, leaving all they had on the mountain.
I couldn’t have kept climbing without their love and support or the love and support of my husband, my daughter in law Jess, and Mitchell’s partner Sam, AKA…the sherpas, and all my amazing friends watching me trek from afar. Text of well wishes, and even a Facetime from friends kept me moving. Never believing I was loveable or enough just for being me, as this support poured in, I admit I had a Sally Fields moment standing at the summit of my third lap. “They like me, they really, really like me.” Overwhelmed, and allowing myself to feel loved, I took a moment to stand at the top of the mountain. The mountains loomed above me, the lush valley rested below, the cascading river roared off in the distance, a reminding me that in this vast world, I was significant, my life is not without meaning, and I am loved.
The 23rd Psalm resonated with my spirit with each summit I would gaze at the green pastures of the valley, knowing that I had nothing to fear because he was indeed with me. Whether I completed 29029 feet, or not, surely goodness and love will continue to follow me all the days of my life.
A psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
The sun began to rise over the mountains calling me forward into a new day and new challenge. I started climbing on Friday June 9th with the added weight of a pair of jeans that represented the weight of carrying anorexia with me most my life. These were the jeans I could slip into when I was at my lowest point, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Holding onto them was a tether to the eating disorder that I was finally ready cut.
By my fourth lap I realized how the physical weight of the jeans hindered my forward progress, just as an eating disorder has often hindered my forward progress in life.
My plan was to leave them triumphantly upon finishing my final lap, just as I had planned time and time again release my grip on an illness, I wasn’t sure I could live without. The one thing that 29029 emphasized was to have a plan but have the resourcefulness to adjust to the ever-changing conditions on the mountain. Standing at the summit number 4, I walked away from the crowd to take in my surroundings and inhale a breath or two as I adjusted the weight in my pack. I swear I heard God whisper on the wind, “you don’t have to keep carrying the added weight of the jeans. What if you dropped them now? You have been held down and tethered long enough. Go ahead my child drop the burden.”
I opened my pack as tears pooled in my eyes. I lifted the jeans from my pack and held them tenderly in my hands, leaned over the edge, and placed them under a rock. I eulogized the jeans and the eating disorder. I thanked them for keeping me safe and protected when I had no voice, and whispered, “so long, I don’t need you anymore.” Feeling infinitely lighter, I stopped to refuel at the aide station before I floated down to the base in the gondola.
I climbed three more laps watching the storm clouds gather and hearing thunder in the distance humming “ain’t nothing gonna break my stride,” Except… a thunderstorm, dang it! I couldn’t let a 3-hour storm delay discourage me, but I could use it to rest and refuel. Some blessings really are disguised. The clouds parted and we hiked past midnight, showered, slept for 3 hours, both my sons succumbed to injuries after many attempts of climbing through them. Just one lap up this mountain with an injury is something to be proud of.
With the storm clouds gathering, I pounded out my last six climbs with my family, and a new community of fellow sojourners cheering me on at the top. I had done it; I earned my RED HAT. My mantras… “Be where your feet are!” “This is a hard that I get to choose!”
Every person has their Everest, and everyone has a story. I am eternally grateful for this event, and every person near and far who helped me climb this Everest and tackle the “hard things” I would have never chosen. I continue to hum “Now Take it in but don’t look down. Cause I’m on top of the world, hey I’m on top of the world hey, waiting on this for a while now…” (Imagine Dragons.)
