I’m going to try and “blog” more often. I put a lot in my IG posts, but if you don’t have Instagram, it’s hard to “find” them again. This at least has a “search” feature. If you’ve been following me from the beginning of my journey, you will know that I was basically afraid of my own shadow when I started. A lot of life experiences had changed me from being a pretty joyful, confident young woman to being an angry and scared woman. I can go into that transformation in another post (if you’d like – just leave me a comment).
Patty’s Fitness Journey started out as physical weight loss and then progressed to mental weight loss and religious weight loss (and spiritual gain.) So here we are on Sunday, August 18, 2019. We always have a morning Bible fellowship so we were starting out for our “hike” fairly late in the afternoon. I think we got to the trail around 3:00 p.m. We chose Ouray because it was 20 degrees cooler than Grand Junction. I found a trail on a photocopied brochure that looked like it was pretty and would have plenty of photo opportunities. That was about the most I knew about it.
The hike was called Sutton/Neosho Mine Trail. As we approached the starting point, my husband reminded me that it was one year ago that we had taken a drive in this area and seen a bear. (Great! I think.) Then we get a little closer and he says, I installed blinds in a house just over that way a few years ago and when we installed there were two bears walking the streets. OK. Remember what I said, in the paragraph above? One year ago, I would have told him to just turn the car around and head home. He had sufficiently scared me that we would run into a bear on the trail. But I grabbed a hold of my mind AND I knew he had brought a gun, so we parked the car and started for the trail. (He’s just talking. He’s not trying to scare me – BUT IT DID.)
We start our climb and immediately, I am struggling to catch my breath. It’s a narrow trail with a bit of an incline for the first mile. Him on the other hand – it’s NO problem AT ALL. He’s talking and talking and talking and I’m like I”M JUST TRYING TO BREATHE!!!! I’ve done some hiking around Grand Junction but it’s usually 5000 – 6000 feet. Here we were starting at 9000 feet. I’m gasping for air, surveying the trail, wondering where I will go if we encounter a bear. There’s really nowhere to go but down (and it’s a long way down.)
We get to about 1.6 miles in and it’s already 4:15 ish and he starts talking about sunset and my app shows we are only half way (when in reality we were only 1/2 mile away) and I decide to head back. He’s fine with that. On the way back he talks about how 2 years ago I would never had done this. And he’s right, I just sat on the couch two years ago. And think about where I’ll be in another 2 years. But what I hear – WHAT I HEAR is “In 2 years, maybe you’ll be able to keep up with me.” Now, HE DID NOT SAY THAT. That is what I hear. Then he keeps talking (because he can) about how logging our food is so important for continued weight loss, etc. etc. etc. Now for 2 1/2 years, I have logged every meal every day but again WHAT I HEAR is “you need to lose more weight and this will be easier for you.”
Do you do that? Do you hear one thing but the person did not say that at all? Anyway it was ALL getting in my head – you’re heavy, you need to track your food, you need to lose more weight, then this will be easier, then you’ll keep up with me……. AGAIN not what he said, what I heard. On top of that I’m thinking where do I go if I see a bear?
Descending a mountain can be tougher on the knees, but I was doing okay. But there were definitely big areas to “step down” from. So I sat down on the rock and then lowered myself down. I did that twice but because of all those dang voices of failure in my head, I decided I could “take” the next step. I started down (on my weaker leg – no less) and as soon as that leg hit, it buckled and I could not keep my balance and I started rolling down that steep hill.
At the time I was not scared, but I was trying to figure out how I was going to stop myself. Apparently I hit a section of trail and that slowed me down and then I continued on the next hill. My husband says I was able to hold on to the trail (that had slowed me down.) So I’m hanging vertically onto this trail as he scrambles down to me. He keeps saying, You’re okay. I’m like – I am not. I can keep falling. He says, I’ve got you. I said, you do not! Oh – brother. But he grabbed my hand and I dug my feet in and climbed back on to the trail.
Now it was time to access the damage. Well I knew my glasses were gone and my leg was cut up. Nothing felt broken. That was good. Oh my phone was gone and my Go Pro was gone. They had been in my shorts pockets. I propped myself up against the mountain I had just rolled down and Dave started to climb up to look for those items. He found my phone right away (red case) and then my glasses, but no Go Pro. He was sliding like crazy looking for those items and I love him for getting them for me.
I had been sending my family videos on Marco Polo of our hike but I did not want to send them one now, because I didn’t want them to worry. Needless to say I scared the bejeezus out of my husband. He led the way down stopping to give me a hand at every step down and we made it down safely.
I needed a day to process what had happened. Why was I letting all those thoughts of failure in? Why was I thinking that this man who has proven his love for me over and over would be thinking those things? In reality, those are my thoughts – not his. I need to continue to work on changing how I see myself. When I said in my Instagram post, I need to stand up for myself I mean it. I need to stand up to my own mind and I need to stand up for myself when someone pushes me beyond what I am physically capable. There’s a difference between being pushed to do 15 push ups instead of 10 and doing a step up to a tall box when your hip will only allow a small step. But I get in my head and think, Oh maybe I’m not pushing hard enough. NO! It’s that fine line of knowing when to push through something that is hard and when NOT to push through something that may hurt me.
That’s what bugged me the most. But I reflected. I learned. I came out stronger. One of my followers wrote a comment that said, “You look great. You may have went down. But you were a stronger person when you got back up!” Yes I was. I’m documenting this for me, but if it helps you too that’s an extra!
