Mile 8 of a 10-Mile Skin
I remember the day clearly. January. Clear blue sky. I was with a small group doing backcountry ski tour —ten miles round trip, most of it uphill.
“It’ll be good for you,” I said to myself, “I need to get out of my head.”
I’d been stuck in my head for months. My son was deep in his struggle, and I was deep in mine. Every conversation felt like a battle. Every phone call made my stomach drop. I was exhausted in a way that sleep couldn’t fix. So I went. I clicked into my bindings, attached my skins, and started climbing.
The first few miles felt good. Fresh snow. Rhythm. One foot in front of the other. I could do this. By mile five, I was starting to feel it. The burn in my quads. The weight of my pack. But I was halfway, so I kept going. Mile eight broke me. It had started snowing, I was cold, and hot at the same time, and I couldn’t see the top. I couldn’t see the next ridge. All I could see was the skin track disappearing into the trees ahead with no end in sight. My legs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. Every step was a negotiation with myself.
You can turn around.
You’re almost there. Keep going.
But what if “almost there” is still miles away?
One more step. Just one.
I stood there on the side of that mountain, breathing hard, and I started crying. Not the pretty kind of crying. The kind where you’re mad at yourself for crying but you can’t stop. I was crying about the mountain. But I wasn’t crying about the mountain.
I was crying because this was exactly how I felt in my life. Like I was at mile eight of something I couldn’t finish. Too far in to turn back. Too exhausted to see the way forward. Just stuck in the hardest, ugliest middle part with no summit in view. My friend was ahead of me. She looked back and saw me standing there.
She didn’t try to fix it. She didn’t tell me I was strong or that I could do it. She just walked back down to where I was standing and said, “This part sucks.” “Yeah,” I said. “It really does.”
“Do you want to keep going?” I looked up the mountain. Then I looked back down. Neither direction felt right. But turning around meant all this effort was for nothing. And I wasn’t ready to call it nothing.
“I think so,” I said. “I don’t know.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s just go to that tree up there. We can decide again from there.”
So we did. One tree. Then another. Then a turn in the trail where I could finally see the ridge. And then, somehow, we were there. The descent was fast and beautiful and probably not worth the climb if I’m being honest. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that I didn’t turn around at mile eight. I’ve thought about that day a lot over the years. About how mile eight—the hardest, ugliest, most doubt-filled part—is where you find out what you’re made of. Not at the summit. Not at the trailhead. At mile eight.
With my son, I’ve had so many mile-eight moments. Times when I wanted to emotionally check out. When I was too tired to keep showing up. When I couldn’t see the end and didn’t know if staying connected was worth it anymore. Sometimes I did turn around. Sometimes I pulled back, stepped away, needed space. And that was okay too. But the times I chose to keep going—not because I felt strong, but because I’d already come this far—those were the times that changed something. Not in him, necessarily, but in me.
Mile eight isn’t where the story ends. But it’s where endurance is forged. You don’t have to feel strong to keep going. You don’t have to see the summit. You just have to be willing to get to the next tree. And then the one after that.
In Parallel Recovery®, we talk about pacing yourself for the long journey. But we don’t talk enough about what to do when pacing isn’t enough. When you’re just grinding through the hardest part and all you can do is not quit. Your person needs you at mile eight. Not just at the beginning when you’re fresh and hopeful. Not just at the summit when everything feels worth it. They need you in the ugly middle when you’re both struggling and nothing feels like progress.
That’s where love lives. In the decision to take one more step when you don’t want to.
At mile 8 with you,
Lisa