One Day - Day one

One Day – Day One

I know I’m late to the trend with this title. But it fits.

For years I lived in “one day I’ll…”

Get fit. Stop drinking. Climb out of the dark hole I’d been sitting in.

There was always a version of me that was going to do it. Just not today.

And when I did take a step in that direction, I’d hit resistance almost immediately. A bad day. A craving. A setback.

Sometimes it wasn’t even a huge wall. Just a bump.

But in that headspace, even a bump felt insurmountable. So back in the too-hard basket it went.

I was seeing a psychologist for a while, trying to untangle some of it. Even that became “too hard.”

Leave work early.
Drive across the other side of town.
Another hour to get home.

All the while trying to plan a route that didn’t pass a bottl-o so I wouldn’t drink when I got back.

I never did find a safe route.

Looking back, I learned more in those sessions than I realised at the time.

One session, she told me a story about a man who survived being in a concentration camp.

She didn’t go into detail. Just a small piece of it.

She said what kept him alive wasn’t hope in the abstract. It was something specific. He would picture himself standing on a stage one day, telling people what he had survived. Almost as if he was observing it from the future.

He wasn’t just enduring it.

He was collecting it. Documenting it.

I remember sitting there thinking, what does this have to do with me? I was stuck in my own head. I wasn’t exactly open to help.

But the idea stuck.

The thought that maybe the pain wasn’t just something to escape.

Maybe it was something that could be used.

Maybe it wasn’t about “using” pain at all.

Maybe it was about direction.

For a long time, I wasn’t just hurting. I was untethered.

Dealing with personal tragedy was one thing. Losing my identity after the military was another. Structure had always been there. Purpose had always been assigned. When that disappeared, so did a part of me.

Pain without purpose feels endless.

That story about the man picturing himself on a stage wasn’t really about survival. It was about meaning. He had somewhere to mentally stand. A reason to endure.

I didn’t have a stage.

But I could build a direction.

That’s what running became.

Not therapy. Not escape.

Direction.

A start line. A finish line. A training plan. A goal on a calendar.

Something to move toward instead of something to run from.

And somewhere along the way, I realised something.

Sometimes you can’t just walk out of the dark.

Sometimes you have to pave it.

Brick by brick.

And I had no idea what I was doing.

There were setbacks. Sometimes potholes. Sometimes full sinkholes. Weeks where it felt like I’d lost ground instead of gained it.

But that stopped mattering.

As long as I was still moving in the right direction.

Uncomfortable decisions stacked on top of each other.

Early mornings. Missed drinks. Long runs when I didn’t feel like it. Showing up anyway.

Purpose doesn’t remove the darkness.

It gives you a way through it.

And eventually, that path becomes something solid enough that someone else can walk it too.

That’s what Dark Trails is becoming.

It started as a way to survive my own darkness. Early morning runs. Dark forests. Miles where there was nowhere left to hide.

But somewhere along the way, it stopped being just mine.

If it helps someone else take one step forward, it’s worth building.

Dark Trails is my direction now.

Not because I have everything figured out. Not because the darkness disappeared.

But because purpose replaced drift.

It’s something I’m building deliberately. Not to glorify pain. Not to romanticise struggle.

But to remind people that hard things done on purpose change you.

That sometimes you don’t escape the dark.

You build your way through it.

Brick by brick.

Step by step.

Day one. Again. And again.