August 27, 2008. 11:01 a.m. I look up. I see a sheer rock face. I look left and right. I see an amazing vista of dimpled land, cream-puff clouds, miniature trees, and the exceptionally distant base of the Catskill Mountains—a vista that would have looked so much more amazing from behind the glass of a safely closed window. I don’t feel safe. I know that I shouldn’t be up there. I look front and back. I am moving in a line with seven very enthusiastic strangers who boisterously carol the tune of an old Scottish folk song as they eagerly scramble toward the monstrously unfriendly rock face we are about to climb—without any safeguards. I am particularly unhappy at this point, not because I am a wimp who can’t handle “the great outdoors,” but because I am scared—with good reason.
I’ve always had to work harder than most people to get what I want in most aspects of life, but not in track and field. I was one of the fastest, highest jumping girls on the team. It was the one thing I enjoyed because it came so easily to me. Yeah, I absolutely loved track and field until Feb. 16, 2007.
February 16, 2007. 9:17 a.m. I wake up. Last night, I qualified for the Indoor Track and Field Championship at the University of Michigan in the triple jump and the 4x200 meter relay, and I’m still smiling to myself. I decide to go downstairs. But, I’m really sore, so my first attempt to get up fails. I lay there for a few more minutes. The morning sun is beaming through my window onto my face, I’m hungry for breakfast, and I’m tired of this “I can’t get up” business. So I tense my abs and I’m in the process of bolting upright when a shooting pain radiates from my lower spine and renders me immobile. I attempt to get up in 15-minute intervals for the next hour with the same result. I feel dejected.
On Feb. 16, I didn’t know it, but trying to get up again was a process that I would continue for the next year. I suffered for six months under the relentless care of two slave-driving physical therapists, the disappointment and disbelief of an entire track team, scolding from my family for “ruining myself,” a fractured back, and a broken spirit. Worse than the physical pain was the hurt I felt because few people believed my pain. My credibility as a person was questioned because I had sustained an “invisible” injury. I had no brace, no cane, no walker, no outward public reminder of injury. I felt alone, and each shock of pain I felt in my back was a sharp reminder that I was no longer athletically invincible or even athletic at all. Track and field became a bitterly nostalgic memory I couldn’t forget. I fervently envied and indiscriminately hated runners, jumpers, and anyone who could move with ease. They possessed the very innate qualities that had outrageously been stolen from me. I couldn’t be a runner anymore—so, I was no longer who I once was. I was somebody else who could barely walk by the end of most days. I was somebody who felt crippled. But on June 9, 2008, I decided not be crippled.
June 9, 2008. 4:28 p.m. I place my application for Columbia’s Outdoor Hiking Orientation Program in the mailbox. As I drive off, I feel the sweet twinge of excitement until the gnawing, bitter aftertaste of reason extinguishes it. My impulsive decision begins to seem like a bad idea as I think to myself, “Just because I can finally walk and jog normally doesn’t mean I can hike 20 miles through the Catskill Mountains with a 30-pound backpack!” My doctor, physical therapists, and family had repeatedly told me to “take it easy,” and hiking 20 miles is not “taking it easy.” I continue doubting myself—maybe I’m not strong enough to do COHOP. Soon enough, my reasonable doubts subside—that is, until Aug. 27, 2008.
August 27, 2008. 11:06 a.m. So, I stand in front of this vertical pile of rock that sits perpendicular to the ground, a near perfect 90-degree angle. I think, “Why did you sign up for COHOP? What were you trying to prove, and to whom? Do you want to relive a year in the life of a cripple again? And if your back starts to hurt, you can’t just stop climbing. And if you fall, it isn’t just you that will die. You will kill everyone else behind you!” I continue to move in line with my fellow COHOP-ers who still carol their Scottish tune, not knowing that they might be inadvertently killed because of the stupidity of some girl they had known for less than 48 hours. I reach for the grooves in the rock and stop thinking. I don’t carol. I don’t think. I climb. I reach for the next rock and the next. This arduous climb lasts for what feels like a day. I reach up for the next groove to grip, but instead all I can find is a thick gnarled tree root. I gladly wrap my fingers around it and pull myself and my 30-pound backpack up. And up I go, over the edge of the last rock. I reach the plateau and see the most amazing view—the dimpled land, large cream-puff clouds, the infinitesimally small trees, and the profound majesty of the distance I had climbed. It is the first time in a long time that I don’t feel like a cripple. I feel more like myself than ever. I feel limitless.
The author is a Columbia College first-year.