After, in the valley
It snuck up on me. Amidst the challenges of re-entry, jet lag driven sleep challenges, an endless inbox of work that needed addressed, a backlog of patients, a three week absence from family responsibility, and a fairly fatigued physical state, the sadness crept in. At first I thought it might be just fatigue, but as the weeks passed I found that even after a long, deep sleep, that the motivation to get out of bed barely registered. A general malaise shadows the days. It is hard to smile or laugh, and isolation is my preferred companion. It is hard to admit, but I am sad.
This has happened before. Cycles and phases of life, shifting moods and attitudes, the spectrum of experience is broad. I felt it after running for weeks in Nepal, and I felt it after an expedition to Alaska, I also felt it after my first trip to Bhutan two years ago. This time is similar, but also a bit deeper. I’ve heard it called the post expedition blues. Olympians have shared a similar emotional vacuum after an olympic cycle. It is something very strange and difficult to explain. Yet, those who have been know. Others have felt it, some never will. It is different than the sadness that is grief or loss. It is less sharp, and I don’t find it as overwhelming as grief has been. It feels like something is missing, and that thing is something I have lost or left behind.
My friend Mark, a legendary alpinist, has described this experience as “returning to the valley”. There is of course the physical return, the descent off of the mountain and back to the valley, but further depth can be pondered when the perspective of the emotional experience. Expeditions or big physical efforts in the mountains open the soul to experience an energy and transformation. The deeper the physical challenge the deeper the potential for transformation. For those of us who have been there and are fortunate enough to return alive descend out of the mountains and to the valley. There, amongst the routine and normality of daily life, the rate of transformation drops off precipitously. We find ourselves surrounded by those who have not and will not ever experience the beauty and brutality of those deep transformations. And for me, it results in sadness.
In the valley I yearn for the mountains. I want to continue to experience the stripped away ego and the soul laid bare, something that I struggle to find when I am in the valley. I also know that the magic of those transformations is in the relative infrequency of the big and deep experience, that if they were too often it would become common and transformation would slow or be taken for granted. The shadow I am in will eventually pass, at least it always has up to this point. The time in the shadow varies and I am not sure aside from time what the remedy is.
Ironically, I am writing this on Thanksgiving day. I am surrounded by things that should make me feel happy; my lovely family, delicious food, a warm home. I have good physical health, and a stable source of income to provide for my needs and wants. I am indeed grateful for stability and security, yet the dark shadow remains. Maybe writing it out, acknowledging it, will help me move through and beyond it. Perhaps the remedy is just time. I don’t know. I do know that I will persist and will have eyes, ears and heart wide open to the emotion and what I can learn from it. I think it is ok to be sad, to feel it all, and I hope that by sharing my return to the valley might be useful to those who are also or will also experience this particular challenge.