Towards Feeling Normal Again
A reflection on endurance and the long work of recovery.
Deep Life Reflections | Essay 45 | James Gibb
Recovery promises a return to normal. But the person returning is often not quite the person who left.
Today I began cardiac rehab.
After open-heart surgery, it feels good to put on a t-shirt, shorts, and trainers. Nick, my cardiac physiotherapist, told me his job was to get me “feeling normal again.” Normal is very far from how I’ve been feeling since the surgery five weeks ago. So those words felt very good.
My recovery is not going to be a dramatic leap back into life, but a series of calibrated and careful steps. There are also things I used to be able to do that I cannot do yet.
The ultra runner Scott Jurek knows something about the tyranny and the promise of the next step. I just finished his book, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail. Co-written with his wife, Jenny, it’s his account of a gruelling journey along the 2,197-mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine, cutting through 14 states. The Trail itself feels like an additional character in this story, at once beatific and brutal, prone to wild swings of temperament. A sweeping golden vista at sundown can quickly give way to sheets of freezing rain by daybreak.
In July 2015, Jurek attempted to break the speed record for running the Appalachian Trail. Over 47 days, he ran, hiked, climbed, and stumbled nearly fifty miles northward each day, battling both the terrain and his own physical and mental limits. Early in his attempt, Jurek faced a major physical setback—a blown-out right knee and seemingly torn left quad muscle. Over several chapters, we are right there with Jurek, sharing in his pain, despair, and the looming spectre of failure. The attempt seems over after barely a week. But Jurek kept moving, his body somehow holding together.
Equally central to the story is Jenny Jurek. North is as much her story as her husband’s. She is the backbone of the operation, managing logistics, preparing meals, offering emotional support, and driving their van/temporary home, ‘Castle Black’, to the next remote location to meet her exhausted husband. Her journey is marked by her own strength, especially poignant considering her recovery from a miscarriage. We recognise their different personalities, but also how they are united by this physical and spiritual quest in the midst of America’s wilderness.
In writing North, Jurek reflected on his darkest moments. This type of reflection might seem trite until you’ve faced some serious adversity in life. Going back to difficult experiences isn’t necessarily about extracting inspirational lessons, but simply trying to make sense of what in fact happened. It’s something I can relate to. I recently joined a heart surgery support group on Facebook, and sharing my story, as well as hearing others, has been an important part of the process following open-heart surgery and the changes in my life.
The journey back typically doesn’t announce itself by bursting into a room. More often, it is much less grand. It might be sitting down, half-asleep, a pair of trainers waiting. One careful step towards feeling normal again.
And recognising that the landscape ahead might be the same, but the person running it is not.
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