Finding my Priorities
How crying has helped me hone in on what I actually want out of life
About two weeks into my 1600 mile thru hike, I dove into an alpine lake and felt the fresh cool water rush down my skin.
I broke through the surface and immediately burst into tears.
That morning, I woke up on the shore of Porcupine Lake in NorCal as the energetic, 19 year old Skippy the tent site over finished packing up his tent and waved goodbye while I wondered off to find a place to pee before following suit. The day prior, I made friends at the stream on the top of the climb out of Castle Crags. Section hikers and thru hikers converged with the sound of water filtering through sawyer squeezes filled the air. The loneliness of the previous days melting off of me with every belly laugh. One by one, a group of four guys I referred to lovingly as “the boys” for the rest of my hike joined our hodgepodge picnic scattered down the small, grassy bank of the stream running only inches wide.
Bottles filled and just as we came in, we left the stream one by one.
I spent the day leapfrogging with Bombadil, Appleseed, Tank, J Lo, and Skippy. Stopping for breaks, trail side naps in the shade, and hiking a few miles with Bombadil sharing out lives off trail with such ease I couldn’t believe I had just met these people that day. I wanted to text my therapist “see, I’m not afraid of men, I just don’t know any in Durango I like enough to be friends with.” The boys had spent almost everyday together since Campo, even taking a trip to Hawaii when they needed to kill time while the Sierras thawed.
I had yet to even see the same person more than two days in a row. My heart ached in loneliness.
As I paddled further into the clear blue water through streaks of morning light. A dog barked in the distance and I scanned the coastline hungry to see who the voice belonged to. Frantic to find the dog. My heart begging it to be Indy while knowing so fully he’s home in Durango.
I cried the next few miles as I did most days.
When I first started my hike, I woke up in the morning and longed to sit on the couch with a hot cup of coffee in my hands and my best friends around me. For my dog walking by my side. For my mountain bike and my running vest and fresh fruit. I missed my town and my favorite coffee shops and the mountains I call home.
I’d wake up and sigh and then pack up and get on with my day.
Two days out from Belden, I saw signs warning about the upcoming burn scar and I walked past each and everyone of them with very little thought. I heard whispers about how wrecked the trail was and shrugged them off. So while I packed up before the sun crested and crossed the two lane road, I glanced once more at the sign stapled to the post before stepping into two hours of hell. I climbed over fallen giant trees, stumbled back and forth through burnt brambles, remnants of bushes that cut deep into my legs. I slid down ash covered hills trying to find any semblance of a trail. Looking at the little dot on far out over and over before eventually spitting out onto another road crossing. I sat in the dirt, defeated. Spooning melted trail mix into my mouth when I heard a little noise from down the road. Turning the corner, I saw heaven. A pop up tent with a ring of camp chairs, tables of food, and the little sign that made my heart explode, Trail Magic.
I sat as G2, a fellow thru-hiker who I met at the Donner Ski Ranch the week prior, offered me sodas, beers, and burgers which I declined for fritos and fresh fruit. I sat in bliss and a group of other hikers filtered in. Listening to Snow Leopard, Stanley, Pure Stoke, and Charlotte talk and laugh and share stories from the thousand miles they had already covered before I touched trail. A girl walked up and sat in the camp chair next to me, savoring a peach. A follow Coloradan. Another young solo female hiker (can I call myself young in my late 20’s? I think it’s okay).
Me and Tundra left the trail magic together with the warning to take the alternative around the burn coming up. Hiking the rest of the day in step, we connected over our longing for the San Juans. Me, Durango and her, Leadville. Trail was beautiful and we were so privileged to be out there but we both had lives we loved that we couldn’t wait to get back to. We wanted more difficult trails and runs and summits and our friends.
She shared with me what a friend had told her earlier in her hike:
What you miss on trail shows you your priorities
What truly matters to you
It’s something I repeated to myself often on hard days
It’s okay to be lonely. To miss my dog and my people and comfort and rest. To miss just sitting in one place with no need to move. No where I need to be, no terminus calling for me to get closer. Crafts and clean skin and a shirt that I don’t hate. Connection and conversations with people who know and love me deeply. To be well fed and strong and energized.
To have support, people to take care of me when I am just too tired to do it myself.
On trail, it gave me things to look for. Feelings to create for myself. Ways to take what I was missing and give it to myself.
It gave me a direction for when I got off trail. It showed me where I needed to be. Who I needed to be. What I needed to let go of from before.
A month after finishing my hike and I’m sitting here telling myself the opposite
What you miss from trail shows you your priorities
The simplicity.
Waking with the sun, quiet moments of bliss
Unexpected friendship and trail magic.
Days so full they felt like weeks
Trailside naps in the sun and views that brought me to tears.
Deep belly laughs with people I might never see again and the freedom from caring about appearances.
The joy from working my body into exhaustion and the satisfaction after a long day.
The overwhelming joy found in the simplest of things like water you don’t have to filter, delicious trailside berries, a lukewarm free soda, or clean socks.
The goofiness that only comes with being alone with just your mind for entertainment in the woods for weeks on end.
The emotional rawness that gave me hell also freed me from self restraint in being unapologetically being myself.
Never really rushing but a slow satisfaction at progressing down trail
Just one simple goal;
To just get a little closer to Canada every day.
These are what truly matter to me
It’s something I’m finding myself thinking of when the blues creep in
Trail showed me where I want to go. How I want to live. What I need to call in that wasn’t there before.
My priorities haven’t shifted or changed, they’ve uncovered themselves. A common thread begging me to weave all the pieces together to create a full life. Connective and silly and meaningful. Full of mornings with friends, alpine lake swims with my dog, dancing down trails, simple and slow and intentionally continuing to find the things that light a fire in me and prioritize them in my life wherever I go.
Taking the things I long for not as a desire to go back but as an invitation to move forward.
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Loved reading about your adventurers. 😌🌲 Happy trails!