Between October of 2015 and March of 2016 I was so, so sick
with pneumonia. Every single breath was painful. I couldn’t go anywhere or do
anything and if I tried to, I would just end up back in the emergency room. I
had to take sleeping pills at night in order to sleep and each night, my
greatest fear was that my roommate would find me dead in the morning.
Generally, the worst and most difficult part of my day was the 5 minutes I
needed to stand up in the morning in order to take a shower.
And now?
Yesterday I stood on the top of a mountain at a little
church overlooking the Mediterranean Sea after an hour and a half climb. It was
my first post-pneumonia hike. A Canadian girl named Sofia instigated the
adventure and I joined her, a New York musician girl and the Californian author for the trek.
On the way up, the beautiful, young musician girl went on and
on for a bit about a woman at the hostel who was a few years older than me and
in great physical shape. She kept reiterating how that was the goal. I looked down at my own, out of shape, imperfect
body which was decidedly not the goal
of these young girls, but I looked down on it with surprising kindness. This body
has taken me far. This body lived through pneumonia. How could I hate it? It’s
easy to imagine a life of perfection when you are 19. I guess it is expected
that you will.
But in the end, despite my weakened body, I did it. I stood
atop the mountain. Then I walked down to the bottom of the mountain and Sofia and I climbed down onto a little,
secluded beach where we dove in the aquamarine sea and swam for an hour. I felt
empowered (to say the least) when we arrived back in our little village of
Plakias that evening, 5 hours after we’d left.
That night was a hostel BBQ where the musician and the author
played their guitars and serenaded the group with an incredible array of beautiful songs.
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| I am the absolute worst at water selfies. This was the best of the bunch. |
$0.56 - Water
$5.58 - Hostel BBQ
$1.90 - Beer
$3.35 - Gelato (Cranberry and Banana)
$11.15 - Accommodation
Day # = 4
Daily Total = $22.54
Grand Total = $239.69
Daily Average = $59.92
Greece Total = $239.69
Greece Average = $59.69
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