That hill was more like a ramp...

You know how people joke about being over the hill when you hit 40? I think I kind of used to think that...before I actually turned 40. You're supposed to settle down and relax at 40, right? Yeah, I don't think so either. I think that instead of feeling like life is downhill from here, I have treated it as a bit of a ramp, an impetus to try new things.

Sure, I did some things since my birthday last December that were more superficial in nature, I suppose, like getting another tattoo or getting waxed for the first time. But I also set some goals for myself this year that I never would have anticipated completing a year ago.

On June 18th, Mike and I participated in Mud Run MS, a fundraiser put on by the National MS Society, obviously a cause close to my heart. It was a 10k run, with over 30 military-style obstacles and tons of mud and water. I trained for months worrying I wouldn't be able to run the 6 or so miles. In the end, I realized it wasn't about how fast I did it. It was about completing it, and I did. It took my husband and I 1 hr, 40 minutes to finish. It was a rainy, chilly day, and we were both freezing by the time we finished. I stood by one of the food carts that came down from Portland holding my free Ninkasi beer while my hand shook so much the food cart guy gave me a bowl of soup for free. Even so, I'm so glad I did it, and I plan to do it again next year.

We had two weeks to recover from the Mud Run before we were to climb Mt. St. Helens, and I was really nervous about it. We purchased our permits to climb several months ago, but I didn't think about it much until the time got close. Whenever I'm nervous about something like that, I become really ambivalent. I didn't want to think about it or even pack for it until the day we left. However, once we got into Cougar, WA, where our cabin was, I was feeling a lot more excitement than dread. We had our permit to climb for July 1st, a beautiful, clear day. We took 6 hours to get to the top, and during those 6 hours, I thought of giving up at least a couple of times. I'm glad I didn't though. I kept pushing on, even when our water supply got low. It was worth the tremendous effort. The view was amazing, and so was the high of getting up there. The trip back down to the car took another 3 hours, and we were both in pain by then.

Probably one of the big highlights (is there such a thing as a lowlight?) of the trip back down was when I had to pee so bad that I had to resort to crouching next to a pile of rocks in the middle of the big barren landscape. No one was nearby, but it was still a little surreal to be squatting out there in the wide open.

You'd think after all that, we'd relax the next day. We can't seem to do that. We toured the other side the mountain, the side that blew off with the eruption, on Saturday.  Then we headed to a place called Ape Cave. Lower Ape Cave is an easy hike, so we chose to do Upper Ape Cave, which is considered strenuous. It was the most fun I've had in a cave, scrambling over rocks and up an 8 foot wall. I felt like a million bucks after we got out of there. It was tough, and we both had injuries we were nursing from the climb on Friday, but it felt good to conquer that cave.

After succeeding at those two goals that were looming over me for most of the first half of this year, I feel like I can do anything. I am more fit and stronger than I've ever been in my life. I am motivated to try all sorts of new things now that a month ago, I would have considered out of my reach. Maybe turning 40 was just the push I needed to start living again and stop just existing.

Standing up

I rarely bother to make New Year's resolutions because I view them as the sort of thing most people disregard after a few weeks at most. Instead, I have a identified a couple of goals that I believe are important to advancing my mental health this year (and into the future). As such, they are less the sort of things that typically qualify as resolutions and more as changes to my approach to life. I have two goals for change in my life that I have so far identified, which I think are just good rules for living in general.

1) Stand up for what you believe in. I think a lot of the time, I tend to avoid confrontation, and this leads me to keep my mouth shut when I encounter people that I believe are "talking shit". I sometimes even avoid or leave a discussion because I don't want to upset someone by disagreeing with them or I worry that they will dislike me if we disagree. I have recently realized that this approach causes me to compromise my personal integrity by not standing up for what I believe in. This doesn't mean not respecting the beliefs of others, unless of course they are belligerent about said beliefs. I most often avoid confrontation withing my own family, but no more. I will not stand by as young minds are molded (or warped) by views I strongly disagree with. I will no longer allow racist and/or homophobic remarks go unchallenged because it's 'just not worth arguing'. I believe it's always worth standing up for what you believe in.

2) Put your money where your mouth is. I think that if you are strongly against the attitudes or beliefs of an organization or business but continue to patronize or support that business, you are supporting those beliefs or attitudes indirectly. As an example, if I disagree with the politics of a company, I cannot in good faith patronize that business without compromising my own principles. One particular example I can think of is a business that I believe is exclusionary of a group of people because of how it views that group (which is inaccurate, by the way). I don't support that exclusionary attitude and think it's misguided, so I cannot support that business without supporting that attitude.

I think these two goals basically translate to the following: be yourself. When this is the case, you don't worry about what others think of you, because you know you are being true to yourself. It doesn't mean everyone that knows you will agree with you, but at least they know where you stand. It is any given person's choice whether or not to accept you for who you are, but it is your choice how you present yourself to others. I choose to present myself honestly and openly, even as my opinions and beliefs evolve over time.

I know this will be difficult for me at times, as it goes against my nature in many ways. However, in the end, it's worth pissing a few people off if it means I can look at myself in the mirror and not be ashamed.