Usually, people use New Year's Day as inspiration to start anew. Since I was fighting off a cold so that I could get into surgery on January 7th, New Year's was NOT a day of renewal for me. Recouperating from surgery can take a while. In my case, the doctor gave me 12 weeks to make sure that everything healed up nicely before I could do anything more strenuous than folding laundry. Last week, those 12 weeks were up! My son and I finally got to do what I had been promising him to do since we moved into our house last summer (and before the intense abdominal pain stopped me from doing any such foolishness): attempt to climb the hills behind us. Now, when my son was younger, we used to go on excursions around the smaller hills of our old house all the time. These hills behind our current house are actually bigger than hills, but smaller than mountains...mount-hills, if you will. And very rocky. But, I figured...I've done this before. I'm ready to tackle it again. So, I laced up my shoes, filled up a nice sized jug of water ('cuz walkin' makes ya thirsty, ya know) and my son and I headed out to tame that beast of a hill. He carried the camera. Gotta lighten the load wherever you can.
I'm NOT a complete glutton for punishment. It takes a bit of a walk through a large neighborhood behind ours to actually GET to a place where we could access the hills. So, we drove there in my car. I figured, if I was going to go ALL THE WAY UP THE HILL and ALL THE WAY BACK DOWN THE HILL, I was going to be just too plum-tuckered out to walk ALL THE WAY BACK HOME. Like I said...I'm NOT a glutton for punishment.
So, all full of vim and vigor and not really thinking clearly other than, "I've done this before...I can do it again", I headed up the trail that leads to the top of the mount-hill. We saw horses along the way. They came up to us to see what we were doing on their turf. We said, "Howdy". My back began to ache, my breath shortened considerably and my feet were saying "What the hell do you think you're doing". Yet, I doddered along, stopping whenever possible to ease the tension in my back. My son gave me lots of encouragement and tried to engage me in conversation while we were going along. I couldn't get much out, though, between my gasping for air and trying to ignore the swordfish poking its way into my side (what business does a swordfish have doing out here on the mount-hill?).
Not quite a quarter of the way up the mount-hill, my back, knees and feet finally had a "Come together, Jesus" meeting and said, "OK. That's it. You're done." Unfortunately, I had to stop. I couldn't go on. I rested for a bit and tried to go, but the pain was too much. I knew I had to turn around. I tried to do a Black Diamond run when I really should have started on the Bunny Slope. I was so disappointed. I had already been planning my big "Rocky" moment at the top of the hill all week. It wasn't happening. At least, not THIS week. 
Disheartened, I told my son we had to go back. "That's OK, Mom. I'm proud of you. You did really well. You said you were going to do this and you tried. That's what matters most." (Yeah, he's a great kid.)
So, next weekend, I am bound and determined to go further than where I stopped last weekend. Even if that means just a few steps more. It's still a few steps more than I did the week before. Eventually, I will have my "Rocky" moment. You can bet that I'll catch that moment on film and share it will you fine folks.
To me, Spring Fresh is a renewed sense of spirit...of pushing yourself beyond your limits and setting your goals high. Even though I didn't get to the top on my first try, I'm gonna keep trying. I'll get there one of these days by just putting one foot in front of the other. Once I reach the top of that mount-hill, I'm going on to the next one and then the next one until I have to actually go find a moun-TAIN to climb. Cue "The Eye of the Tiger". I'm ready, Mickey.
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