[ IP ] Where does the door lead ?

I've hiked this mountain a couple of times, it was close to home and I'd always wanted to stay healthy, even as a young man. From a young age I remember that door being there, it just was there in the middle of the foot path, not even on the summit, just a old wooden door that was n't standing the test of time very well. From time to time friends would join me on my walks and they'd ask me of the door, where it had come from, if it was magical or special in some way. I could never give them an answer, there was nothing obvious about it, nothing magical or special, no Harry Potter trickery where you wind up in an alternate dimension or whatever. I knew this for a fact because the first thing a curious teenager does when they see a strange door is walk through, expecting Narnia to burst open before them. No such luck. 
 
 I grew up, everyone does, moved away, found a girl, got a job. You know, life things. A door on a mountainside is n't something that sticks with you, much like the posters on the walls in school, you walk past them a lot but no one really looks or memorises them. So it was that way until about a month after the diagnosis, I'd been tired and weak for a while, out of breath and I was always coughing over something. Realistically it should n't have come as a surprise when I look back, but it really did. I'm not that old, I've got a wife and a young kid, you ca n't get told something like that and not panic about your future. I must admit, even at my age I'm still a mothers-boy and once the news had settled with my wife for a little while I knew I had to go home and tell my family. So I did. I could n't do it by phone, too impersonal. 
 
 So I made the journey home, that old mountain I used to walk up and down for fun sat in the corner of my eye as I turned into the driveway. My mother was an angel, I remember losing an uncle to something when I was young, I never knew what but I had found out this week after telling my mother. She was experienced and she's been a real help to me this whole time, but you know sometimes... When you just need to get out, get some fresh air? Back up the mountain was where I went. It was a lot harder this time, perhaps they'd made it steeper since I moved away, they do that with the stairs sometimes. Make them steeper, or add another one. 
 
 Half way up I was so tired, I could barely stumble on. Then I saw it. That odd door, still stood there on the path, battered from time but still alive and well. It felt too far away, my younger self would have strolled through that door, I made the summit regularly but this time, I could n't. I just could n't. I sat and looked up at it, it was so far away now. In my youth I would have never imagined never not being able to reach the door, but it just was n't for me now. I was weighed down with how my life had changed, it was too much. Even when trying to escape all the talking about it, all the consoling and the worrying, the plan making and the false smiles, I somehow smacked back into the limitations. The stoppers put on my life. It was a lot to face, I'm generally a well mannered and calm man but there was an anger inside me that broke into motivation. 
 
 I am my own person and this diagnosis is not who I am. I do not need to be held back by it. Fuck it. Thought I as I stood up. My feet were solid now, my breaths were deep but sharp and my strides were born upon a second wind, a new burst of energy. I walked, I pounded that mountain under me until I stepped through those wooden arches like a marathon runner through a finish line. I was in control, if I could make it to those doors I could do anything I wanted. This was my life and I would reclaim it. 
 
 When I was a young man a friend asked me where that door led to, I could n't tell him at the time but now I know. This door leads to the rest of my life.
