Sometimes life just hikes up and says, “Get off your butt and do it.” No couch potatoes allowed in this game.
My only son leased his first apartment with friends and moved out 2 days before Christmas Day 2015 (“You will come home for Christmas, right??”). His father passed away in 2014 (we were officially divorced in 2002) and the last two years have had us doing the push and pull dance of emerging adulthood and letting go. I’m not sure how I feel about being an empty nester yet but the house has an amazing way of staying clean now.
I have been working for the federally funded low income preschool program Head Start for 15 years as a social worker and yesterday at an all staff meeting they confirmed that my position will be eliminated at the end of this program year. I have known for two years now that this was coming but to hear it said out loud left me emotionally charged, alternating between tears welling up and a nauseous feeling in my stomach. Not from worry as much as the reality that I now have to actually do something about it.
Let’s just say that my job search so far has been minimal (opening an account on Linked In and signing up on job lists). It’s really hard to find another job where I don’t work summers (You feel really sorry for me, right?). The reality is, I am at a crossroads of deciding to stay in the same career (I love those kiddos) or branching out and forging a new path less traveled to pursue the passions I have been developing in the last few years.
Four years ago I started on a lifestyle change involving the Paleo diet which has morphed into an anti-inflammatory diet to deal with arthritis and other ailments. My first goal is to eat nutrient dense whole foods, which means having to make a lot of my own food, including the food I take hiking. This hasn’t been a problem; I have been cooking for years and feel comfortable in the kitchen. I won’t lie; saying goodbye to familiar comfort foods in the name of health has not been easy. However, I could talk forever about how this has changed my life, from reducing inflammation, improving my sleep and making me a more even tempered person (much to the delight of loved ones).
I love trying new recipes, playing around with flavor combinations and testing my taste buds (liver, anyone?). On the downside, it makes social interaction awkward at times (“Sorry Aunt Betty, I can’t eat that lovely dish you made”) and choosing a restaurant to eat at with others a constant exercise in concession. The closest restaurant to me where I feel comfortable eating everything is in the next state (Portland: Cultured Caveman). My love for cooking also has lead me to cooking for others over the years, making monthly meals for a local teen shelter with my church to now helping cook at a community kitchen at a neighboring church.
I have been hiking and camping all my life growing up here in the Pacific Northwest and added backpacking to my resume about 9 years ago. My escapades in the wilderness have exploded into an obsession of sorts as I work on hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in sections as able (I work a teacher’s schedule). Last year I logged over 80 hikes in Washington and Oregon, including a thru hike of the Wonderland Trail, a week on the Oregon PCT and a romp in the otherworldly Enchantments. I do most of these hikes solo but as I try to hike more year round and in different conditions, I have joined hiking groups to push myself and appease those who worry about my safety. I have extended my passion to lobbying at the capitol in Olympia, joining the Mountaineers to volunteer with kids, writing trip reports on wta.org and taking friends out on hikes in nature so they can learn what I have learned.
“I hope starting and committing to this blog will be the first step towards a new direction for my life as I continue to put my passions into action and share them with others.”
I have been writing online for over 3 years now about my hiking adventures on www.trailjournals.com and enjoying every minute of it. Like a lot of people, I pin my passions on Pinterest, post my walks in the woods to Instagram, and fill my Facebook page with an endless stream of incentive to get outside. Friends and family encourage me to take it to the next level: “Write a book!”, “Make a calendar!”, “Start you own business!”
I signed up on WordPress last year with all intentions of starting a blog. I wrote one post. My friend Anne and I have batted around the idea of a hiking support website for women, even applied to a grant to get started, but it still remains a tiny smoldering ember buried in our conversations. And yet, I continued along in my responsible, stable life with these ideas merely floating around in that nebulous land known as THE FUTURE.
And here I am, starting off 2016 with a list on my phone of all the things I hope to accomplish this year. A list that looks strangely familiar to a list on my phone at the start of 2015. Yoga, home improvements, declutter, write. Oh, you have one, too? I hope starting and committing to this blog will be the first step towards a new direction for my life as I continue to put my passions into action and share them with others.
I’m not sure exactly where this blog will go, but you now have a general idea of who I am and what is important to me. Will you join me on this journey of putting to words what sparks and sets my soul on fire?
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