Adventures

Are you not going on any more adventures? climbing any more mountains?...

The question I get asked quite a lot from people who don't really know me. And occasionally from people who do know me. When I get asked it my insides tumble and I ache to be back on a mountainside. Or on an adventure. That's the thing when you do something like that, you get loads of questions and they're great and stuff and it's great that people are interested but, looking back, I was broken on my return from Nepal. Both physically and mentally and it was only in the months that followed I realised just how much. You see that adventure was in the planning for 2 years and I put my everything into it. The fundraising, the making of Christmas cards to sell at a Christmas fare, the baking of cakes to sell at coffee mornings and the walking those mountainsides in the every changing Himalayan conditions. For you see, I did put my all into it. It was tough. Real tough. There was a point we might not even have gotten as far as we did so erratic were the weather conditions from Kathmandu to Lukla. It was the first time I'd travelled so far. It was the first time I'd met my companions on the trek. It was the first time I felt scared, so scared that I was wondering what people would say about me back home when I didn't return. This was an adventure, of a lifetime, of my lifetime. Well so far anyway. I wrote in my Moleskine and tried to put into words what each day meant to me but I don't think I can convey how my heart broke when I realised I couldn't actually live out this dream. I couldn't go to Everest Base Camp. I was too sick. No matter how much I wanted to go on I just wasn't physically able to. And do you know how that feels? To have your dream taken from you. Being so close to your dream then *KAPOW* it's gone in a flash. If you've read my story you might get an idea of my thoughts and feelings and fears then. But now, when I get asked that question... well I still get the tummy tumble, the ache in my gut that says you never made it. I know on the whole it was a fantastic achievement and to this day I always say it was the single greatest thing I've done in my life so far, but it hurts. Like no other hurt. It just does.

Who knows what the future holds? I may return (I would bite your hand off at the chance if I had the funds). But for now I'm satisfied with the fact that at least I tried.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything.

Angela x

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