Milestones

This article discusses themes of domestic and family violence. Support is available via DVConnect (1800 811 811) or your local equivalent international support service.

The world milestone is derived from the Roman times practice of marking a stone on the road. Travellers used milestones to know how far they had come, and how far they had yet to go.

As the sun rose over dense forest, I thought about milestones. We drove along the winding road in near silence. I'd turned 40 that week. It was a gentle slide from one day to the next. It was also a thick line demarcating something tangible and concrete. I dozed and woke in the clouds. The bus parked at Mount Fuji's 5th station. My ears popped. My bones ached.

I marked milestones on Mount Fuji by the metal signs displaying elevation and distance. By each station cantilevered from the volcanic rock. By each hour. Soon, it became each breath running ragged from the sickness in my chest. Each unsteady step.

When the summit seems insurmountable, life shrinks. This is the way of life. All mammals, including humans, have this response. Life becomes smaller because we scan only focus on the immediate. It is not a neurochemical imbalance, something to whittle away at with pharmaceuticals or obscure with denial. It is survival.

As I climbed, I remembered when life last felt like a million small steps. Leaving felt like a summit I couldn't scale. But I could write down the signs. I could pack a bag. I could tell people. Each step broke me. Each step made me stronger.

No one tells you that after you leave, you never really arrive. There wasn't really a point that the thick line was crossed: that I was out, or that I was safe. It came in the small steps: The bed could be imperfectly made. The kids could spill drinks. Dinner could be burnt. The days blurred without eggshells. The nights rich with easy silence.

Each step stitched me.

Each step made me softer.

Somewhere along the way I stopped being a victim, and became a survivor.

We reached the summit in the early afternoon. The clouds cleared enough to see the view.

It was nothing. It was everything.

Etched all the way down the mountain were markers: milestones, as far as the eye can see.