In preparation for this trip to Durango, for weeks, I had been watching the road conditions. After all, it was just before the spring melt and I wanted to drive up into the mountains, if I could. I would pull up the Colorado road conditions video and see if there had been new snow.
I would think, oh, no way is this possible, or oh yes, the mountain road is clear. But it’s icy over here. Look at that glaze.
Being the adventurer that I am, I drove up straight north to Silverton.
Let’s say I’m not a great driver on mountain roads. As in, I go about ten times slower than everyone else. Coupled with Colorado mountain roads with no guardrails, snow banks on each side, and breath taking views, and you’ve got one very slow driver!
And, I also stopped a bazillion times to take photos.
I was giggly with glee at this winter wonderland landscape.
Stopping in Silverton, everything still closed as the season was not yet open, I picked up lunch and walked the little street through the town.
On the way back through the mountain road, there was my moment. My Walter Mitty Snow Cat Moment.
I stopped on the side. It felt like I had just stepped into the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe.
A couple had also gotten out at this pull over and was running around an evergreen Christmas tree in the snow before making their way out. I wasn’t wearing the best shoes and slid on ice that was in the parking lot. Tiptoeing over to the edge, I walked just a few feet, put my foot out, and snow came up almost to my knee.
I laughed with glee at the cold white snow that was packed around my legs.
Losing a shoe when I picked my foot up, I delicately maneuvered around to retrieve it.
And then, a burst of energy took over. I was a child playing in the snow. Two days before, I had been in the desert heat, and now I was prancing in the snow. And now I was holding out my arms, dancing.
I pranced in the snow, in awe at the snowscapes and the winter wonderland that lay before me. I put my camera down around my shoulders, and took a deep breath. The frozen air filling my lungs. My breath lingering and then hanging in the air as I exhale in puffs of smoke.
This is being alive.
I am alive!
I had surgery, a devastating surgery, one the most emotional for a woman to have. I had lost a piece of myself, and yet I knew in order to be healthy I needed the surgery. And the timeframe held other points of uncertainty and anguish. I had done everything right, everything. The purification nutrition, the mantras, the meditation, the music, the connection with Barton, coordinating help for us, arranging family to stay; I had done everything right. When the surgery was over, in my post anesthesia stupor, I had asked Barton if I had made the right decision. Yes, he said. I had. And I had. I truly believe if it had not been on my terms, I would have had an emergency surgery.
And there was still a complication that no one knows what to do with. I was medically traumatized from all of the tests post surgery. In ways I couldn’t express to anyone. Inclusion cyst with a fistula. The diagnosis without a plan.
And I held it together. No, I didn’t just hold it together. I kicked ass every day. I brought the best of myself, of who I could be, everyday. I had thrived. Not just survived. This wasn’t overcoming life. This was living the marrow out of life.
I had a choice. The devastation of the possibility of infection or reoccurring surgeries could hold me back. Or I could live the heck out of every day. What do I want out of the day, out of life? What do I see for myself? Let’s take life for a real spin and see what we can do.
Today.
I am alive. Today.
Dancing. Arms out wide. Wide.
The freezing air burning my lungs.
Playing in the snow.
Breathing in the snow.
The sheer beauty of this snowscape before me.
What sheer delight!
There are no words, no description for the point in which I felt this alive. This thankful. This overcome with emotion that I had made it through these points.
That I was here.
That I am here.
We all need that feeling of YALP on the mountaintop!
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