Saturday, the mountain won.
I threw up on the side of the trail, admitted defeat and turned around.
Which isn’t exactly the inspirational hiking content I had planned.
I drove home disappointed. Not because I had anything to prove, but because I had genuinely wanted to stand on that summit. Instead, I found myself wondering if lupus decided that mountain wasn’t meant for me.
It’s funny how quickly our brains do that. They don’t just remember disappointment, they promote it.
One bad day becomes evidence. One failed attempt becomes identity. I didn’t make it to the summit so maybe I’m not capable.
Someone walks away… so maybe I’m too much. Too broken.
One dream falls apart… so maybe I should stop dreaming all together.
The facts rarely change. The story we tell ourselves about them, does.
Tomorrow, I’m taking a day off work. I should probably catch up on housework or sleep in or catch up on other projects. Most people probably would.
Instead, I’ll be up before sunrise, with my packed bag and driving back to the same mountain that sent me home. Not because I need to prove I can do it.
But because somewhere between driving home Saturday and packing my bag tonight, I realized something – the mountain never rejected me. It simply wasn’t my day.
Mountains don’t keep score. They don’t remember that I turned around.
It won’t greet me differently tomorrow because I didn’t make it last time. It isn’t waiting to judge me or remind me that I failed. It’ll simply be there, exactly as it was before, asking the same question it asks every hiker:
“Are you ready to take the next step?”
Maybe people are a little different. Sometimes they leave. Sometimes they misunderstand us. Sometimes they decide we’re not the right fit for their journey. But that doesn’t mean every trail ends the same way.
It doesn’t mean we’re too much.
It doesn’t mean we’re unworthy of reaching places we’re meant to go.
It doesn’t mean we’re too broken.
I’ve spent a lot of my life believing that disappointment was a verdict. That if something didn’t work out the first time, maybe it wasn’t meant for me. That if someone couldn’t love me the way I needed, maybe I was asking for too much.
Turns out, that’s just another story.
The truth is, rebuilding has never been about getting everything right the first time. It’s about refusing to let one difficult chapter become the ending.
Maybe I’ll stand on the summit tomorrow. Maybe I’ll turn around again. Honestly, I don’t know.
I have lupus. Mountains are unpredictable. Life is unpredictable.
But I do know this: If I let one bad day convince me to never come back… I was never really fighting the mountain. I was fighting the story I told myself afterward.
And I think that’s a fight worth winning.