There are things we hear talked about on archery ranges, the Vegas in Vegas (set 5 years ago as part of my 50th birthday celebration and the plan is indeed to do that in spring 2025 and maybe also the flight on the salt plains that summer).
One of the things people talk of is Dunster – 8 days of shooting, covering a variety and range of competitions over the week.
Last June 3 friends arranged that the 4 of us would spend the day together on the Wednesday – longbow day. Just to watch (though I soon found us a job to volunteer for 🫣😂). I was in a bad place, seriously hurting and trying to find my way after giving up on life and everything else in May. I was living day by day in fact I was taking it one step at a time – literally breaking time into 15 minute blocks to get through every day.
By the time the day was over we had made a plan, if I worked hard and could pull it all together I would join my friend and we would come to Dunster for 8 days. So I sat down and made my goals, physical and mental health, a plan for 13 months.
It turned out someone important in my life left me that day, though I wasn’t to know that as they didn’t tell me, in fact that day they said “call me tomorrow” and they never took another call or spoke with me again.
A week later dad got his diagnosis and focus changed for everyone.
The plan for working on my archery didn’t go to plan as I made time priorities about dad and as a result not shooting, though I did occasionally manage to get to a range and the focus was helping me feel safe, stopping the crying and the throwing up.
Therapy sessions continued and gradually reduced in number and I worked hard on everything.
So here I am now, 13 months after setting that goal to life long enough, find a way to make living something I wanted to do. I can stand on a range and not cry, I can arrive and leave smiling, there’s the occasional wobble but I have support. It takes a village for sure.
I have tested the boundaries and worked on how to manage my pain for endurance because 8 days is going to need endurance! Last weekend saw this reach its goal of the double Windsor on the Sunday.
My scores have not been a priority, I do not have a coach, likely never will again. I do however have coaches who are friends and will sit and hear me out and spend time with me listening to my theories and helping me. I have a county captain who has been awesome and spent time on the range being my spare set of hands and eyes.
Here I sit in our little holiday home having been out and explored with my friend, visiting places I haven’t been for a while, exploring galleries and shops and chatting with people. We popped along to Dunster and made ourselves useful for a while and I am excited for what this week brings. New experiences, proof of how I am healing and laughter – lots of laughter, may be a few tears but hopefully not many.
I will be updating how Dunster is going and this week the focus is about me, something I have never done. It’s new for us all. I will occasionally sit down and answer emails etc but don’t be expecting me to respond swiftly as I usually do. This is my week and I make no apologies for it. I have worked hard to get here and I am going to enjoy it.
See you all soon, take care of you and by all means let me know how you are doing.
