Cave in.

The first time I let my mind cave in.  

I remember the day, I first gave in to my mind that I can't do it.  

The walk was up Rishikesh to some water fall.  

2010 Good Friday, it was. 

I decided for myself.  

To suffer Pain and panting and running out of breath was not for me.   

I imagined : I could not carry the burden of my 3 year old son and my own weight.   I could probably drag myself but I could not drag the little one. I did not believe in myself. So I actually did not trust myself to physically endure the pain. 

Kind of strange because  I had my wife with me.  I had friends younger than me with a kid younger than mine and they were carrying the load without a thought.  They had a destination and the view of a waterfall in mind while I had my unexperienced  laboured breath like never before on mine.   I was 37.   

We could have shared the load but that thought never crossed my mind.

We all carry our own cross don't we.  No one shares our cross for us.   

I was less than human enough to accept that I could not do it upfront.

Accepting your weakness to yourself is pretty easy.  It's just a thought.  

Accepting and admitting and voicing it and sharing it with your friends and family is a tough one.  

Telling your friends that you can't do it.  

Telling your wife : sorry, can't walk further, just can't do it.  I am turning back.   

How to say it ? choosing the words was difficult.  

I don't really recall what exactly I said to them at that point of time. 

Come to think of it - I was leading the way as always.  Arjun and I were way ahead of everyone else on that lonely mountain trail, the others following us slowly.  But I just could not imagine carrying on further even if it meant being a spoil sport.  

Maybe it was staying in the lead alone with my own son and carrying him for sometime when he could not walk further. Maybe talking to myself is not a such a great idea for I have not been there and done that.   But my mind caved in.  It was not like I was saying that I don't want to climb the Mount Everest at the base camp itself.  I was saying, that I don't want to endure the huffing and panting to see a waterfall.  Maybe I was not motivated enough.  Whatever it be ; most personal battles are lost and won In the mind.  

I had thought there would be some sort of protest and egging on and motivating speeches of the type "come on man lets do it" and I had mentally thought of lots of things to say to get out of the trek, and that you guys carry on while I head back. 

For me the walk back to the hotel itself seemed like a walk back to the house on the moon and I was more worried about even surviving the downhill path back. 

But as my wife and my friends caught up with Arjun and me and I said the unthinkable. " I am turning back. " Other than a token suggestion of let's try and catch our breath for sometime and then think if we want to carry on further from everyone.  There was no protest in turning back after spending some time together in silence in the wilderness.  

5 adults and 2 toddlers in arms turned back because of one weak link - that was my mind.  

They say that  pain is temporary. The feeling of winning over pain is permanent.  We could have seen the waterfall that day and come back safe and sound and lived happily ever after.  

The reverse is also true, pain is temporary, the feeling of losing to pain is permanent.   

That 6 years down the line I write about that moment In time and I relive that moment is proof enough.  

That 5 years later I followed some one blindly over probably a longer trek practically vertically uphill with no particular trail for more than an hour and a half. 

Just when I was starting on my medication for regulating blood pressure and having a history of high altitude sickness. 

I was the slow walker. I was the follower.  I was not the leader. I did not really have to shoulder the responsibility of carrying Arjun  to the destination.  Arjun was 8 and  had more than 10 times the spring in his steps than mine.  But that's another story for another day.  

It even crossed my mind what if we have a heart attack and die here  ? I imagined that We could die of a heart attack in the car stuck in a traffic jam few hundred meters from the hospital  in the city and no one would still be able to do anything at all.  

And I laboured on :  the summers of 2015.  

There is no memory of turning back and what could have been, no memory of being a lesser human being in the eyes of my son.  Just an acceptance that I can follow slowly in his footsteps.    

PS.  This one is dedicated to Niraj and Shalini Sharma for carrying me all the way uphill and downhill and being an inspiration all the way for the rest of my lifetime.