The Mountain I Didn’t Know I Was Climbing
I like to think that all the shit I’ve had to put up with over the last ten years actually meant something.
The depression.
The anxiety.
The dark moments.
The loneliness.
The constant feeling of being lost, rejected, and quietly convinced that life was pointless and never really going to get better.
For a long time it just felt like suffering for the sake of suffering.
But now, looking back, it feels different.
It feels like it had a purpose.
I think I was climbing a mountain without realising it. I didn’t wake up one day and decide to start the climb. I didn’t have a map or a plan. I was just trying to survive, one step at a time, often in the dark. Only recently did I realise how far I’d actually come.
Now when I look back from where I am, I can see the path clearly. And it feels surreal.
Living in Australia for four years feels like a dream now. Whole chapters of my life feel unreal. People I once knew deeply, I no longer speak to at all. Connections that felt permanent have either faded or been cut away completely. Jobs I once defined myself by are gone. Entire versions of me no longer exist.
At the time, each ending felt like a loss. Another thing taken away.
But now I can see it differently.
None of that was wasted. None of it was pointless. Those experiences were the path. The only path I could have walked. Without learning what I learned along the way, I could never have arrived here.
And here I am.
More alone than I’ve ever been, but also more solid. More grounded. More real.
There is still more mountain to climb. Another ten years, maybe more. But for the first time, I don’t feel scared of what’s ahead. I don’t feel anxious about the future in the way I used to.
I’ve already done the worst.
I’ve faced;
Betrayal.
Breakdown.
Loss.
The complete unravelling of the life I thought I was supposed to have.
So when I ask myself, what else is there to fear, I genuinely don’t know the answer.
Whatever comes next, I know I can walk through it.
I already have.