Sunday 3 October 2010

Day 39 Restday and Past "Yesss!" moments

I'm having a rest day today. The muscles around my left knee feel a bit tight. That was the knee with ligament damage from 2004 when I so elegantly tripped over my clogs and clonked onto it, twisting my right ankle at the same time. Ouchy! That fall took a whole year to recover from, but culminated with me ascending to the top of St Michael's Mount in Cornwall in 2005. I was on a holiday weekend with my sister, and the weather was damp, drizzly and generally chilly! In the middle of the summer! :) The track zigzags to the top and is paved with cobbles, which are tricky to walk on if one's balance isn't the greatest, plus the wet conditions, so when I got to the entrance I was totally filled with pride with myself. A fabulous 'Yessss!" moment. And again when I was standing in the courtyard of the old monastery, looking out over the sea towards the Atlantic, I thought then, if I can do this, then I can do anything.

Whenever I do something that is physically out of the ordinary for me, I have that feeling.

All my life I have been known as the non-athlete. The slow swimmer. At boarding school because I was fat I played drop-out hockey, in the team of girls who were not deemed good enough to play for their houses. I love hockey by the way, it's a splendid sport, might look into playing again when I am fit. When I've done my half mile now in the swimming pool I think "Yesss!!" When I used to play hockey, there was nothing better than tackling some forward speeding towards me, and whacking the ball right out over to the other end of the pitch. A total "Yesss!!" moment.

When I climb up to the top of the hill that the White Horse at Uffington is carved on and look out over the landscape far below, I get the "Yessss!" feeling. Last week, at Shotover, I had it. Yesterday after my towpath trek, I had it. When I was much younger, I cycled from Reading to Oxford - nearly 30 miles ( bitched the whole way at my then boyfriend too ) and when I cycled down the Abingdon Road into town, I had that feeling.

That "Yesss!!" feeling is the best feeling in the world. It's the feeling of exceeding my beliefs about myself. It's the feeling of exceeding the beliefs other people have decided about who I should be. It's the feeling of being an extraordinary achiever for that moment. I'm looking forward to a great many more "Yessss!!" moments in my future. :)

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