Enjoy the Journey

I celebrated my 47th birthday last week.

Birthdays, for me, prompt self-assessment and reflection. Where am I? Where am I headed? Who have I become, and who am I becoming? Who do I want to be? How do I want to live my life.

Now, well into my middle years, I can finally say, “I think I’m getting it.”

Life, that is.

It ’s not about accumulation, accomplishment, checklists or completion. It isn’t about achievement or credential lists or reputations. It isn’t about things or finishes at all.

It’s about who we are and how we live along the way.

Eleven years ago, in the summer of 1996, we lived briefly in France (just three months) as part of a temporary job relocation for DH. It was cheaper to move all of us over there (DH, me, and the kids) than it was to fly Don back and forth across the ocean every two weeks. So DH’s company rented a stylish, contemporary apartment for us in Paris, and the kids and I bopped around the city during the week while hubby slaved away.

We traveled together on weekends, though, and took a two-week vacation in the French Alps that July.

Hiking in the Alps provided one of the summer’s highlights. We searched hiking manuals and trail guides and found an “easy” rated trail the book said would take 3 hours to climb and about 2.5 hours to descend — a total of 5.5 hours, maybe 6 max, to reach the summit and return.

The book lied (or French climbers are significantly more adept at climbing than we are, even though we’re seasoned hikers). Or maybe we hadn’t acclimated to the altitude.

Whatever it was, our climb took much longer than the book said it would. And it wasn’t “easy” by any stretch of the imagination.

Some stretches included boulder fields and vertical (yes, vertical) rock faces. We managed them well, but not without difficulty, especially for the kids (who were 12, almost 10, and almost 9 at the time).

Other stretches were incredibly steep. Dizzyingly so.

If you look closely in the photo on the left, I’ve circled Don in the bottom left of the image (you can also see one of the kids in front of him, farther to the left). That gives you an idea of how steep and high our “little Alp” climb was.

But we kept on.

Five hours into our hike we still hadn’t reached the summit. Yes, we enjoyed the trail, and we paused to rest and take lunch and snack breaks in scenic areas, and we relished magnificent views.

But we wanted to say we hiked to the summit. We pressed farther and farther, higher and higher, waiting for when we’d achieve our goal.

Just twenty yards short of the summit, however, we reach an impassable section of trail: sheer rock-face with no hand-holds on the right; deadly, open-air, vertical drop on the left, and a rocky, uneven, strip of loose dirt and stone in between (that couldn’t have been more than 8 inches wide at most).

My pride wanted to crest this Alp.

My need to impress and to say we “reached the summit” nearly pressured me into doing something foolish.

But all I had to do was look to my left and let my dizziness remind me of how frail we really are, look to the right and see nothing to hang on to, and then look into the three tired faces of my troop behind me (remember, my oldest son has mild CP and balance issues) to realize our adventure wasn’t about reaching the summit at all. It never had been.

• Our adventure was about building memories.
• It was about learning to encourage each other along the way.
• It was about enjoying the vistas and challenges.
• It was about pushing ourselves to do what we might have thought impossible another day and time.
• It was about loving each other and enjoying each other’s company and growing together as we faced tough trails and perilous paths.
• It was about the journey, and not the destination.

And in that moment, the choice was clear. Satisfying my pride wasn’t worth risking my health or life over, nor was it worth risking the health and lives of my children.

Our hike wasn’t about a place or an end; it was about how we managed the journey. We could have a “successful” adventure, even if we never reached the destination.

It was an illustration of life.

Twenty yards short of the summit (according to our map and trail guide) we turned around and headed back down (it took us three hours to get back to the trail head).

Check-list gal that I was at the time, I so wanted to reach the peak and claim its bragging rights. I pushed because, for a few moments anyway, I thought it was about reaching the goal.

But I was wrong. As I stood there at our impasse at over 2000 meters altitude (over 6,500 feet), having hiked up nearly 1150 meters (nearly 4,000 feet) in altitude from our starting point at a mere 850 meters (about 2, 800 feet), I realized how wrong I was.

And I’ve remembered that lesson since.

We didn’t reach the top, no. But we had a great day:

• gorgeous scenery (that we did take time to notice)
• breath-taking (literally) vistas
• laughs and giggles
• a few tears, some fatigue, and pain
• deepened bonds
• greater trust
• growth in how to encourage and support each other
• lessons in perseverance, love, and family life
• irreplaceable memories (our Alp hike is one of the few adventures our kids remember from our summer in France)

So I’m 47 years old now.

And, no, I haven’t reached the summit in many of life’s arenas. None, in fact. I doubt I ever will. I don’t have a boatload of achievements, credentials, or letters after my name. I don’t even pursue “checklists” and “accomplishments” anymore.

I’m “achieving” less and “living” more. I’m learning to enjoy the journey and its process, even if I I never reach its end (in this lifetime anyway).

And I’m happier and far more satisfied than I’ve ever been.

I’d say that’s a pretty good place to be.

So “happy birthday” to me. ) And maybe by next year I’ll be enjoying the adventure even more.

‘Til next time,
Joan