The Best Views Come From The Hardest Climbs

There is a bench in New England that stopped me completely in my tracks.

Tucked amongst the most extraordinary autumn colours I have ever seen — blazing reds, burnt oranges, vivid golds — sat a simple wooden bench with seven words carved into it:

The best views come from the hardest climbs.

I stood there for a long time.

Because I know that. I know that in my bones.

The Climbs

My climbs have been considerable. Breast cancer diagnosed on Christmas Eve. Five bouts of sepsis. Meningitis. A mastectomy. A business I built from scratch collapsing around me. Personal bankruptcy. Each one felt unsurvivable at the time. Each one I survived.

There were years when planning a holiday felt laughable. When the future felt so uncertain that booking anything seemed pointless. When just getting through the day was enough of an achievement.

And yet.

The Views

Last month my husband Ian and I embarked on the trip of a lifetime. New Orleans, Nashville, Memphis and New England. A trip I had dreamed about for years and honestly wondered if I would ever get to take.

And the views we found along the way were extraordinary.

We sailed down the Mississippi on a paddle steamer with jazz floating across the water, the great river rolling beneath us in the golden afternoon light. I thought about all the times I had kept paddling just to stay afloat — and smiled at the irony of finding myself here, on this boat, on this river, finally able to enjoy the view.

We stood on Frenchman Street in New Orleans at midnight as live jazz poured out of every doorway, strangers dancing in the street, the air thick with music and laughter and life. I bought cowgirl boots in Nashville and danced in a country venue until my feet ached.

I heard a voice like an angel in BB Kings on Beale Street in Memphis and felt it somewhere deep in my chest. I stood at Graceland and Sun Studios and felt the history of a place where dreams were made against all the odds.

And then New England.

Nothing — and I mean nothing — could have prepared me for the fall colours.

Driving into the mountains as the trees blazed around us was like travelling through a painting. And when we reached Lake Willoughby and I stepped into the clearest, coldest water I have ever stood in, surrounded by mountains reflected perfectly on the surface — I cried.

Not sad tears. The other kind.

What The Bench Taught Me

That bench in New England said everything I have spent years trying to articulate.

The hard times are not punishments. They are not signs that life is against you. They are the climb. And the climb — as brutal and exhausting and unfair as it sometimes feels — is what earns you the view.

I would not have stood in that lake with tears running down my face if I had not fought my way through everything that came before it. The joy was deeper because the journey was harder. That is not a consolation prize. That is the whole point.

For Anyone Still Climbing

If you are in the middle of your own hard climb right now — I see you. I have been there. I know how endless it feels when you cannot see the top.

But the view is coming. I promise you it is coming.

Keep climbing. One step at a time. Even when the steps are tiny. Even when you cannot see where you are going. Even when every part of you wants to sit down and stay there.

The view will be worth it.

It always is