Ten years ago, when I turned 45 I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was one of the best and most challenging things I’ve ever done and it helped broaden my perspective – both literally and figuratively.
I’ve been thinking about that climb a lot as my 55th birthday approached this year. Perhaps the biggest thing I took from the experience was contemplating what are the real “mountains” in my life and what are the things that I turn into mountains? The things that seem big, hard and consequential but are really just normal life challenges. For me, for a LONG time, I turned my work into a mountain. It’s not that it wasn’t important or stressful (it was) but I elevated it in magnitude, always pushing myself to scale higher, do more, achieve more, earn more. I thought if I just pushed a little harder things would get easier or we could have greater impact through our work. I turned work (and a number of other things) into a mountain but it wasn’t.
Kilimanjaro is a mountain. And Cassie’s Metastatic Breast Cancer is a mountain.
MBC taxes me and us every day. We are constantly having to adjust our approach and change directions. But what really makes it a mountain in our lives is that there is no peak – nothing to reach. We just have to keep climbing. Day after day, week after week and hopefully, if we are lucky, year after year. It’s the hardest and steepest journey either of us has ever faced.
I know better now that when I make mountains out of things that aren’t, I risk minimizing the real mountains when they appear. I also now know that the key to climbing a mountain – real or metaphysical – is slowing down, asking for help and putting on my proverbial backpack each day and doing my best to manage the weight even if I have to often stop and rest.
On this birthday, I am grateful to have learned to focus my energy on the real mountains in life. And, while I hate having to climb this particular mountain, I know that I am not alone. I am grateful for that too.
