I’m in training to walk a marathon. It is now less than two weeks away. I am supposed to be in the “tapering” phase, which means I am supposed to be lightening my workouts, but in my typical last-minute procrastinator way, I find myself trying to sneak in substantial walks. I am a rule-breaker; as soon as I am told I’m not supposed to be doing something I ache for it. I have spent the whole year trudging through long distance training walks, and now, in these last weeks, forbidden, I find myself flying out the door, desperate to walk until my legs feel shaky. This is my nature.
This will be my first marathon. I have no time aspirations; my only goal is to finish. Two and a half years ago, I tore my calf muscle recklessly sprinting without warming up, so running is not an option for me. It was an excruciating pain, right up there with birthing babies, and the recovery required crutches and months of impaired mobility. Although some folks might have rehabilitated themselves consciously, I simply vowed to stop running. I feel protective of that leg, and want to never feel such pain again.
Thus, I walk. I walk for hours. I walk quickly, and pump my arms when I am on a block without pedestrians. I feel silly arm-pumping if there is anyone to see me. I read books on the body mechanics of walking. I plot routes and trick friends into accompanying me. People agree to a three-hour walk thinking it will be easy. We all walk. Three hours is long and, depending on the terrain, can leave you with your legs sore. Those friends evade me the next time I call.
I am scared. I am scared that I want to accomplish something and will somehow fail. Scared that I will have to crawl toward the finish line in the dark, long after everyone else has gone home. This is an unlikely ending, but possible. The real fear is giving up, that I will hit a point at which I will have to admit my inability to finish and step off the course.
This is a fear that permeates all of my life, and, I presume, the lives of most of us. That large ambition is for others, but that within us lurks some inadequacy that will emerge if challenged. The possibility of failure has prevented me from a thousand adventures, as it likely has for you. What if we have to give up, publicly, and lose face in front of those we love, those we want to admire us?
This fear prevents people from starting their own businesses, from asking the beautiful woman at the bakery for a date, and from attempting graduate school. It keeps us from dancing at weddings, from taking the beginning rock climbing class, and from letting our best friend read the short story we wrote. The fear of failure, of foolishness, of inadequacy, keeps us contained and small.
It is not always visible. If you ask those who love me if I am a fearful person, they will laugh and shake their heads dismissively. Look how brave I am. I play music in front of crowds, I give speeches, and I’ve lived in Africa and traveled through Latin America and played drums on distant sandy beaches. But see, those are things I already knew I could do. They were on my list of possibilities. The very things people admire in me are not really very brave, because they corresponded with my personal gifts. I am comfortable with words, I am a confident traveler, and I feel great joy as I play music.
These adventures are safer for me than they might be for someone else. I am not afraid of failing at them.
I have a lengthy list of impossibilities. I am afraid of heights, I can explain seriously, so I can NEVER go skydiving or climb high peaks or learn trapeze. My list of nevers drops from above to other earthbound activities, limited by the belief that they will be physically impossible for me – mountain biking, no, it’s just too physical, scuba-diving, no, claustrophobia in the helmet, surfing, no, you had to start as a teen, skateboarding, no, same reason. It goes on and on, things I will never try because I have convinced myself that I cannot do them. They are out of my bounds.
I am physically strong. I have been a martial artist, a boxer, a swimmer, a backpacker, and a paddler. Why would I be capable of these moments of physicality, and yet be so utterly convinced that I cannot mountain-bike in the beautiful mountains that surround my city?
Because I’ve never tried it. Because the images of mountain-bikers that I see – through the media and in real life - are mud-splattered, bulging thigh power-athletes who seem fearless, flying down the side of the mountain on the narrow trail. Here though is the truth: they did not fly the first time without crashing. They did not wake up one morning, surprised by the girth of their new thighs, some gift of the thigh-fairy who visited while they slept. They attempted, they crashed, they climbed back on, they crashed, they flew, they crashed spectacularly, and the following weekend, recovered, they found themselves at the trailhead, excited to try again.
One of the most powerful things I have done for myself in these years since I was diagnosed with Hepatitis C, was to make a list of everything I wanted to do before I die.
It is a long list, and I included old dreams that I had already fulfilled, just so I could cross a bunch of stuff out and feel amazing about myself. Looking over that list, after I finished, I realized that every goal on it was attainable, easy really. Lots of them required funding I didn’t have right now, but none of them were terrifying.
This was not right.
All of us should have one or two dreams that frighten us. I do want to fly down a mountain – whether on skis or a bike. But it didn’t make it onto my list, because somehow, long ago, I had mentally refused to consider it. It was too scary.
I made another list.
This was the list that I would make if I could really do anything. If I were twenty years old and in amazing physical shape. If I had all the money in the world. If I succeeded in everything I tried.
This was a very different list. It was things my soul desired, but my body had vetoed, in its fear and self-protection. Things I couldn’t consider, because the likelihood of their being unattainable was daunting and discouraging.
I realized that my definition of attainable was skewed.
It is likely unrealistic that I will become a champion mountain biker. I am forty years old, soft in some places, have spent little of my life on a bike, and invested many years pumping poisons into my body. But none of that precludes me having the experience of mountain biking. I can return home at the end of the day, my legs splattered with mud, my arms achy, reaching to lift my bike off the rack on the car, just like other people do. I don’t have to be good at it. I still get to do it.
And so, one of the things that crossed over from the “impossible list” to the “do before I die list” was finishing a marathon. There had to be some adaptations: I will walk instead of run and I will allow myself to take longer than the cut-off time if necessary. But I still get to feel what it feels like to push your body to go that far, am entitled to enjoy the camaraderie and the music and the crowds and the little tables of water. I get to participate in any experience I want to, at whatever level I am capable of. It is my right.
If you will accept such a challenge from me, I propose you do this assignment. Make the list of everything you want to do before you die. Then make the second list, the list of impossible fantasies, the ones that you just can’t do. Move something from the second list to the first, commit to it with all your being, and release your ego from the outcome. If it makes you feel shaky and excited at the same time, then you probably picked the right thing.
This is your only life. Maybe. Throw yourself in and don’t miss any of the secret dreams you forbid yourself so long ago.
Give yourself permission to be the absolute worst tango dancer that has ever existed. Allow yourself to stand crying on the edge of the airplane, whimpering as you force yourself to jump. Demand of yourself that you take the risk, even if you will be the absolute last person crossing the finish line of the marathon. This is your life and nobody else’s. Jump, and the hell with what anybody thinks. You have an absolute and unconditional right to all of your dreams.
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