Hi all:

Today I hiked and bushwhacked about seven miles in Western Maine. I’m the kind of hiker who spends a fair amount of time scrolling through AllTrails researching my next hike, downloading the map so I can stay on trail even without cell service, and knowing pretty much when I’ll be back at my car at the end of the day. But I’m dating a guy whose preferred hikes (and other outdoor adventures) are fluid (to say the least).

Today we adventured in the mountains of Western Maine and it was a good first-of-the-spring-season hike. This hike wasn’t on AllTrails and it certainly had no comforting blazes to follow; it was a piece of land that my guy wanted to explore. The first part of the unmarked hike was on an easy-to-follow logging road and then after a bit the off-trail bushwhacking began. The lack of a trail and the uncertainty of a destination challenged me and my more rigid ideas of what a hike should be. We hiked up steep inclines, over trees, through the last of the winter’s snow, and through lovely patches of sage green moss. Even though I was full of calories from a hearty lunch, I was chilled from the rain and grumpiness poked through. I knew the encroaching bad mood was from the lack of clarity and not knowing how long we’d be hiking or how high we’d climb. I’m a person who loves actual summits and seeing the trail clearly blazed all the way to that summit. Finally, I asked my guy if he had a plan. Knowing me as he does, he didn’t want to tell me that there wasn’t much a plan, just a desire to explore and see what was around the proverbial corner. At that point I had a choice to make, accept the uncertainty and let go of the need for control or what? I wasn’t exactly sure of my other option, but I think it probably involved falling into some unappealing fussiness. I actually had a good sense of where we were (we weren’t lost), I was warming up, and the hike was lovely. And, biggest and of all, I want more adventure in my life and it was being handed to me. It was mine to accept it with joy. We continued on and up, found ourselves in a charming birch forest, made our way past beautiful vistas, stopped for a bit to listen to an insane peeper symphony, and finally wound our way back to the car.

I was happy for the adventure, the Type 2 fun, and hiking out of my comfort zone; I was 100% okay and had been through the entire hike. It was the scared/anxious part of my brain that tried to hijack me and it was the other part of my brain that said, open your heart and your mind and embrace the not knowing. So glad I did.
 

OK, that’s it. Get outside if you can, find pleasure and awe where you can, take a risk, and take good care of yourself.

Happy adventuring,