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"Four weeks earlier I had been injured during a white water kayaking trip in Costa Rica and lost a good portion of my left thumb. For my first trip I decided on a very challenging run. This story is my account of how I dealt with the fear of getting back into my boat.
Doubts flowed through my mind as I stood on the shore. The river raged by in a torrent that threatened to grab me and sweep me helplessly down stream. What was I thinking. I had gotten hurt only four weeks earlier and the scars were still fresh. I did not want to deal with that ever again. I had no right to be scouting a class five rapid from the banks and considering running it. Fear was all I felt, fear as I looked at a rapid that has given so many other people trouble. People that were much better boaters than myself.
The rapid Hydraulic Blood is no joke. Giant boulders choke the water´s passage down a steep drop causing giant pillow waves and deadly sieves to form. The cleanest line is blocked by hydraulics that can easily toss a small kayak off a tight line forcing you against unforgiving rocks or into a large recirculating hydraulic at the bottom of the rapid. If you end up in this hole you will stay in it until, if you are lucky, a friend pulls you out of it.
But here I was, looking at one of the most challenging rapids I had ever seen and considering running it. A month ago this would not have been a problem. In my red kayak I would have slipped into this rapid without too much of a second thought. Only four weeks ago I was on the top of my game and feeling so confident in my boat once I pulled my skirt over my cockpit and entered the water. Each run I was challenging myself more and more and improving with grace. I was tearing one limit down after another. But that was then and this was now. I had been hurt. It was a hole new ball game today. I understood what it was to see myself covered in my own blood. Images of my own bone sticking out of my skin still haunted me to this day. I knew what it was to see part of your body no longer where it should be. I no longer had a feeling of automatic well being or aura of invincibility surrounding me. What would happen if I rolled at the wrong instant. Would my friends be able to unpin my upturned boat as I thrashed desperately for air. Would I rake my face over rocks scarring myself for life. All my mind and heart saw and felt was one nightmarish scenario after another. I started feeling foolish having paddled this far. My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding. I watched my friends as they ran the right line. I returned to my boat. I was going to walk around it. Not today Steve, maybe not even tomorrow.
As I shouldered my boat I stood there and looked into the river at my feet. The water flowed this way and that turning around itself in so many ways. It flowed over rocks screaming down the gradient causing crashing waves and recirculating hydraulics. The water tucked itself behind rocks and swiftly folded back upstream only to be sent out into the river again. I could see rocks through the clear blue water that would not be here after the next flood passed through, picking up everything that was in its path and rearranging it down. I started to wonder if I walked this rapid now would I have the strength to return to this river next year and run the new rapids. When I went home would I be able to face other rivers not knowing what would be over the horizon line. Would I let a passed pain keep me from something I loved.
I stepped into the water and let the water flow between my bare legs. My feet gently sank into the fine smooth stones that covered the river bed. The water gently pushed against my shins causing small micro-eddies to form behind me. I looked down again but this time I did not see the river. All I saw was my own dark silhouette shimmering against the trees and sky above me. I saw myself standing there with a boat slung across my shoulders and a paddle in my hands. I had been hurt before. I had failed tests, struck out at the plate and had lost friends and lovers. Just like anybody else I had been hurt bad. But none of this had ever stopped me from trying again. Maybe I am to be hurt time after time but I believe that if you want something bad enough you cannot give up, no matter how hard it hurts. All of us have to sacrifice for what we love. Following dreams will always hurts and sometimes even leaves deep gashes and scars. But the only time you can ever really be beaten is when you give up because of you are scared. Feeling fear and insecurity is not a bad thing. A person cannot go through life without them. But bowing down to these feelings is what kills something important inside, overcoming them is what causes that same thing to grow.
I put my boat back down, half on shore and half floating in the calm eddy. I placed one leg after another into my small red kayak and tightened up my back strap one click at a time. Like so many times before I put my skirt tightly in place. I took in a deep breath and held it. With a quick shove I was in the main flow riding downstream with all of my insecurities and fears heading toward Hydraulic Blood. Today was not the day to give up. Not today and not tomorrow. What a feeling, what an honest to God good feeling."
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