One day, we decided to go for a drive and try out a walk. I fancied a forest, stream, waterfall type affair. We decided to drive to a little place called Beckhole. We got there and went to a very small local shop where we asked about the two main walks to the waterfalls. The first path started out alongside a stream, was very rocky and narrow, they said that was about a 20minute walk each way. The second path, looking at it initially looked like a much easier terrain and they said was about 30minutes each way. We stood at the crossroads eyeing up each path. I obviously wanted to take the shortest one, but peering along the stream looking at the rocks, I got too worried about it, just one slight slip and it'd be Mustard in the stream. With my balance still not perfect, and my new penchant for tripping, we decided to go for the slightly longer route.
As we started, I knew that an hour long walk was likely to be far too long, but I wanted to do it, I really wanted to do it. I thought let's just start out, and see how it goes. As soon as we started I began to get a bit edgy, knowing that as far as I walked I would have to walk back as there was no way the boyfriend could have gone and got the car to pick me up should my legs decide to fail me. It is difficult in such a situation, because you know you have to save enough energy to walk back, but you still want to push yourself to the limit just to see where that limit is. There often isn't much warning when my legs get to the point of failure, and even if I sit down and rest for a while they still don't recover completely.
We had a nice amble along a flat path for a short while (about 5minutes) then the path took a sharp ascent. There were steps built in, nothing to hold on to. I stood at the bottom and thought 'how the hell am I going to get up there?' We'd been to an art gallery over four floors the day before, and I'd only managed to see two floors of it, legs protesting about the last two flights of stairs. However a stubborn determination kicked in and I felt hell bent on getting to the top, so up I went.
Half way up, as I sat on a rock, these two walkers passed us, all kitted out with rucksacks, boots, maps. The kind of walker I used to be on such holidays. They sped up the steps with such ease, envy prickled inside me as I watched them go off in to the distance.
I finally made it to the top, and sat right down on the grass. Unable to go any further at all. I had walked all the way up, only to have to walk all the way back down, and still hadn't got to the waterfall.
We sat for a bit, nibbling at pick and mix and sipping water, as if the dry patch of grass in the middle of some trees at the top of the path was a perfectly normal place to stop for such activity.
Eventually my legs recovered enough to be able to carry me back down the steps. The boyfriend kept asking if I was okay, obviously sensing I wasn't very happy. As we got near the bottom I burst in to tears. Seeing all the walkers in their hiking gear, made me miss the person I used to be and the things I used to be able to do.
I used to love going walking in North Wales. Okay, I did moan every step of the way up the mountains, waiting for the picnic, the pub meal after the descent, but I thoroughly enjoyed the majority of those walks. It suddenly hit home that I probably will never be able to do that again. It's not like I didn't already know that. Before I even had my first MS symptoms, I'd had the thought in my head that I would never walk up a mountain again, I blamed it on my weight, my laziness. However in hindsight, I think the MS had already started.
We stood hugging for a while as I babbled on about wanting to be able to do more.
We got back to the shop and pub and sat down and had a drink.
I tried to get my head back in to its usual positive space. Started to realise that the length of the walk, was something that, if I'd done back home, I'd have been proud of. We probably walked for about 10minutes, but part of that was very uphill. I started to see this as an achievement rather than a failure. I'd had an emotional wobble, but that was understandable because being in that setting had made me grieve for the person I once was, but that in itself is no bad thing either. It's healthy to recognise these perfectly natural emotions. So I stopped beating myself up for not making it all the way, and we had a toast to the fact I'd given it a go and how far we had gone, rather than lamenting about how far we had not.
I might not make it up an entire mountain again, but the physical and emotional effort of my short walk in the woods had been just as much as all the times I'd walked up Snowdon put together, and that, surely, is just as much of an achievement.
At least I gave it a go.
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