The Anguish of Adventure

Let’s talk a little about adventure. The true nature of it.

Mostly what you read is the good parts. The parts that are the most interesting to write about. To read about. To hear about.

You don’t really want the grit.

It’s too whiny or complainy or pouty. But it’s all there. The blood and the swelling and the pain and the mental anguish. And that’s all part of it too. It’s wrapped up in the beauty of the adventure. It’s what makes it raw and wonderful. It’s what makes me appreciate clean water. It’s what makes me cherish clean underwear, or feet that work.

But it’s hard to write about the ugly stuff. It’s hard to admit that my feet were so swollen the other day that I walked too slow uphill. That I was in unbearable pain and though I was doing my best, I walked past ant colonies that were 6′ x 6′ x 1′ and they were the biggest ant colonies I’d ever seen in my life and the ants started crawling up my legs and biting me. And I couldn’t walk any faster. And I could only reach them to shoo them away when they reached the bottom of my shorts because the hill was so steep and I needed my hands for my trekking poles to help me with the pressure on my feet. It sounds like failure.

It’s hard to write that it’s not just high altitude sickness. It’s Acute Mountain Sickness. It’s facial edema which means that my face swells up until I feel like I can’t see very well. It causes some nausea. It’s waking up feeling like I can’t breathe and being scared. It’s a wet cough that I know can’t be good that turns to a dry cough that I hope is better. It’s terrible headaches and forgetting to look at the time because time doesn’t exist out here and then suddenly the tylenol and the decongestant wears off and I feel horribly ill all over again. And it’s ugly.

It’s excrutiating pain in my right foot with every single step. And every time I pick up my foot, I have to convince myself it’s okay to put it down again. All day. But then one day, that blinding pain moves to my left foot instead and that’s startling and infuriating because I only know how to mentally deal with the pain being in my right foot and what do I do with this new agony? But then we take that as a good sign because it means my right foot is not as completely fucked as we thought. But we have to move slower because I can’t wrap my head around this new pain, so we have to stop a lot to regroup and handle my struggle.

It’s walking just far enough behind Anji so that she knows I’m there, but if I whimper accidentally, she can’t hear me to worry unneccessarily, but if I call out, she can hear me just fine.

It’s gauging to whom, at home, I can tell the truth. Who can handle it? Who will cry and tell me to come home versus who will handle the situation and encourage me in a meaningful way to continue? Who can help me decide the right course of action? Who knows me well enough to know when my will and my mental fortitude is overcoming sensibilities and safety? Who can I trust to tell ME the truth? Where is the correct back and forth?

And the constant worry that if my body fails me, what does that mean? If the earth is constantly trying to kill me, how can I continue to adventure?

And if I can’t adventure, who am I?