Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
I started the hike with a smile on my face even though my soul felt a little heavier than normal, but not for bad reasons. Missing my mom made me sad, but that wasn’t a bad thing. I just hoped she knew I still missed her and thought of her.
I put my phone on airplane mode so it wouldn’t start roaming and drain the battery in no time. I’d learned that shit the hard way months ago. I could check it again once I got started going up.
Despite the cool temperature, the sun was bright and beautiful, the sky the bluest thing I’d ever seen. I couldn’t have asked for a better day to do this, I knew. Maybe Mom had worked it out to cheer me up.
That thought lifted me up even higher.
Despite losing my breath after the first fifteen minutes and having to stop a lot more often than I would have wanted, I kept going. I took my time, had to peel my jacket off after a little bit, and kept an eye on my watch but tried not to stress about all my stops. The entire back of my shirt ended up soaked with sweat where the backpack rested, and that too was no big deal. I checked my phone every other pit stop and didn’t find service. I just kept on going. One step in front of another, enjoying the incredible scent of the wilderness because that’s exactly what this was.
I was in the middle of millions of acres of national forest all by myself, and as much as I would have enjoyed company, on today of all days, doing this gave me chills.
I imagined my mom taking this very same trail thirty-something years ago, and it made me smile. Her notes didn’t specify which way she’d started the hike—there were two ways to get to the lake, one of which was the path I was on now and the other was the one I’d taken last time—but regardless, she was here. These trees had given her some sort of peace, I’d like to think.
I was pretty sure she’d done it by herself too, and that made me smile wider. It’d be even better to have Clara here… even better to have Rhodes with me or Am, but maybe it was meant to be for me to tackle this alone. To do this one last trip by myself like I’d started. I had wanted this move to Colorado to be me reconnecting with my mom, and nothing could have prepared me for the changes I’d made in the months since. They had made me stronger. Better.
Happier.
Sure, I’d still scream if a bat snuck back into the house or if I saw another mouse, but I knew I’d be able to figure out a solution if it happened. Maybe you didn’t have to get over your fears completely to conquer them. Maybe if you just faced them in general that counted. Or at least that’s what I wanted to believe.
And maybe… this was my goodbye to at least part of the past. Closing all the opened chapters that hadn’t been completed. I had so much going for me. So much joy just waiting around. Like with the end of my relationship, I had so much I was leaving behind to start over with all these new possibilities. I had people who cared about me again, who worried for me, and they didn’t care about who I knew or how much money I had or what I could do for them.
So maybe it could be like I’d thought before. You could start over any day of the week, at any time of the year, at any point in your life, and it was fine.
And I kept that thought in my head as I kept climbing, another hour after hour went by; my calves cramped, and I stopped briefly again to take some magnesium capsules I’d brought along. For all I tried to jump rope, my thighs burned like a son of a bitch too, and I was going through my water faster than I’d expected, but I’d planned for that too and could refill at a stream or the lake, even though the water would taste like butthole. I didn’t want to get altitude sickness more than I disliked the taste of filtered water, so tough shit.
The scenery changed and changed, and I marveled at the beauty and greenery around. And maybe it was because I was too busy admiring everything and thinking that life was going to be okay that I didn’t notice the sky. Didn’t see the dark clouds that had started rolling in until a flash of lightning and a boom of thunder cracked across what had been clear skies, scaring the shit out of me.