For me it did.
I’d had the New Year’s Eve from hell. After birthing two kids in two years during a pandemic, I hated the feeling of being in my own skin. I felt pudgy, and slow, and nothing like the person I was before a virus shut the entire world down, and two babies took over my life. I was also suffering from late-onset post-natal depression after starting a new job as an arts editor at a major publication, only three weeks post-birth – and subsequently leaving that job only six months later.
So, it was probably no surprise that at our very expensive New Year’s Eve dinner, my husband and I ended up in an argument, completely ruining the night (and the fancy $800 dinner). I woke up the next morning determined to approach the new year with a different mindset. And after feeling like a virus and two toddlers had ruled my world for the past three years, it was finally time to take some control back.
But here’s the thing: I’m really bad at self-motivation. For a long time missing deadlines was a writerly mystique I was leaning heavily upon; for how can one create art on a deadline? Art can’t be hurried! But I knew deep down that my recent lack of motivation was a symptom of something else. I had depression.
It wasn’t the lay-in-bed-all-day variety – after all, with two kids under 3, that was impossible – but it was depression nonetheless. I hated my body, I hated my writing – I hated everything about myself. But as the sun peeked out from behind the curtain of my hotel room that particular morning on that particular New Year’s Day, I decided it was time to change that.
Three Little Resolutions
My New Year’s Resolutions were thus:
- Go to counselling, you idiot.
- Travel somewhere by yourself, entirely for you.
- Set a physical challenge for yourself, and work towards it.
The first thing I did was start going to counselling (you idiot). The second thing I did was book a trip (no kids, no husband) to Thailand for a spiritual realignment at an instructional meditation day with a Buddhist monk (I’m a practicing Buddhist). And the third thing I did was book a 56km, five-day hike on the Milford Track in New Zealand.
Had I been on a five-day hike before? No. Had I hiked anywhere close to 56km in my entire life? Also no. Was I delusional when I booked it? Perhaps – but at least I convinced my best friend Katie to come with me. I decided we could be delusional together.
The thing about booking something like that when you’re lacking in motivation is that the fear of looking like an absolute nonce as the local TV station films you being airlifted out of the national park because you were completely unprepared, really keeps you moving towards that fitness goal. That, and the extra 10 kilos I’d piled on sitting at home during a pandemic in my trackpants nursing two babies.
So, when the day finally came to say goodbye to my little ones (hug, nod, absorb the tears, RUN), I felt pretty damn prepared. After all, the step machine told me I’d successfully climbed the Eiffel Tower in less than hour! I was good to go – and the 1.1km elevation of the pass I would be climbing in torrential rain only days later certainly didn’t seem as much of a mountain (lol) as it did when I booked the trip, high on depression delulu.
Walking Into The Quiet
Here’s the thing about a five-day, 56km hike in complete wilderness – with no phone reception, no wifi, and no way of being contacted for almost a week – the quiet that came with touching grass was a quiet I desperately needed. No one touching me, no one to endlessly feed, no one shouting MUM MUM MUM MUM, no emails, no social media pings, no shitty comment alerts on my latest article, no work calls asking had I opened that email they sent five minutes ago yet?
Nothing. Just me, and the world, and quietness. All I had to do was get up, feed myself, and walk. And when the walk got hard, or painful, or overwhelming, I just had to walk some more.
When I was in Thailand a few months earlier, the Buddhist monk training me in advanced meditation techniques told me something that had stuck with me. He said that pain was temporary. That we spend our lives trying to escape pain – because we worry that it will get worse, that it may never stop, that things will never go back to the way they were before. So, we avoid it. But the thing is, it is temporary. It just is. And all we can do is exist in it, experience it, and know that it will soon go away.
I thought about this often during my hike; when blisters erupted on my feet as they swelled inside my hiking boots, when my asthma combined with the thinning air reduced my oxygen intake to almost nothing, when I woke up each morning unable to walk, but knowing that I had another 20km ahead of me – and another 20km again, after that. But I also thought about it when the pain fell away; when we reached the summit, elated – when we hit the final mile marker on the track, five days later, knowing there was only metres to go to our goal.
I thought about all the painful things I’d never spoken about to my counsellor, my family, my friends, or even my husband, because in the avoidance of pain was the semblance of peace. But it wasn’t peace – it was a thrumming, anxious coping; a half-life of denying the very things that made me, me.
On the boat back to civilisation, one of my fellow hikers jumped as his phone pinged. Rediscovering an old habit, he checked the screen and declared: “Oh, it’s just a spam call.” The significance of that was not lost on me.
On this hike we had all found peace, in one way or another. Or perhaps it had found me, and hugged me with its open sky and devastating greenery and violent, rushing water, and whispered to me: let it go.
Bianca O’Neill is a freelance journalist with bylines at Rolling Stone Magazine, Refinery29, The Age, Herald Sun, Yahoo Lifestyle, and more. Follow her on Substack or Instagram.
