MUSINGS FROM MIDLIFE
My Stories
Go Hard or Go Home
I will not be a mystery to my daughter. She will know me and I will share my stories with her - the stories of failure, shame and accomplishment. She will know she’s not alone in the wilderness. Viola Davis
Earlier this year, my 14 year old daughter and I took to the trail to hike the 80km Overland Track.
Admittedly, doubt arose when said daughter turned up the day before we left with new acrylic nails, an untimely but generous gift from her grandmother.
The Journey
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice — though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you did not stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognised as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do — determined to save the only life you could save.