Ending…and New Beginnings

Are graduations epic adventures? No…probably not. They are simply the transition point marking the ending of one adventure and the uncertainty of what comes next. Is the time spent as a student an adventure? That’s harder. If those years are merely a slog of fulfilling responsibilities, taking required courses, and surviving in a fog until “real life” begins after graduation, then, NO, student days are nothing epic. On the other hand, if the student makes new friends, explores new interests (via classes or clubs), and gains new skills, it is possible that university days could be called an adventure…

I went back to university a few years ago and finally finished a Bachelor’s degree in 2015. That was certainly a season of new things! Finishing that loose end with a graduation but finding myself still “stuck” in life just made my mid-life crisis stronger. The uncertainty of that transition time was a big reason why I headed to the Appalachian Trail (with youngest daughter in tow). (Read about the start of this ongoing adventure HERE. Read about WHY we started backpacking HERE. )

Why am I writing about graduations today? Because as a proud mom I wanna brag. (Humor me, okay?!) Because that has been the focus of the past few weeks. Because one graduation became the excuse for an epic road trip adventure. And because all of us teeter on the brink of endings and new beginnings at least a few times in our lives.

Sometimes, even as one stage is ending, we already know what comes next. My daughter Nettie just graduated with a Doctorate in Pharmacy a few weeks ago. She is headed to a 1 year residency in another city where she and her husband have already found an apartment. (He is still job-hunting—wish him well!) All the hard work required to earn this degree is certainly something to be celebrated. In addition, there is some level of comfort in having navigated similar transitions many times in the past. Now it is off to the next adventure in life…

For most of us, uncertainty is draining. Facing the ending of familiar roles and expectations is hard, especially when the “what’s-next” is not yet visible. Youngest son, Jakob, is in this situation. He is happy to have finished his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry. He and his wife know they are moving back to Ohio to job hunt and set up their next home. Right now, life feels less like an adventure and more like an ordeal. Hopefully, both of them can remember the perseverance and the life-skills they have gained from past adventures to give them confidence as they move forward toward this current unknown.

Like I said above, I’m a proud mama to these hard-working kids we have raised. I can’t wait to see where life takes them. And I will be cheering them on all the way…

Is YOUR life an adventure right now? Or are you in the transition time between endings and new beginnings? Do you have any words of wisdom from your experiences in these in-between-places of life? I’d love to read your stories in the comments below…

“Ta-Dah!” — Choose to Thrive (don’t merely survive)

Some weeks are bright, colorful, productive, full-of-life times. Other days are dark, only-managing-the-basics, blah times. Last week was one of the latter: supporting two friends who were suicidal, “holding space” for a family saying goodbye in a loved-one’s last days, listening to a friend facing a difficult divorce, hardly having time to cook or deal with laundry and dishes, and let’s not even talk about time to spend with my family! I’ve shared before how much I crave the BIG EPIC! But how in the world can I find any hints of adventure when I’m in survival mode?

Gray days. Blustery, windy, freezing cold days. Huddle under the blankets on the couch days. Days like this sap my energy and bury my motivation to accomplish anything. What about you?

Dead flowers rattling through the winter. Brown leaves rustling in a cold spring breeze. Sometimes it feels like I’m in constant motion but am hardly living. What about you?

I don’t know about you, but all-too-often the to-do lists in my planner make me feel blah and gray, just like these photos. All I can see are rushing, busy days and zillions of things I might never get done. Staring at these foggy should-do lists buries my motivation to actually work on anything.  Where’s the life? Where’s the enjoyment? How in the world does a to-do list help me THRIVE??

A few months ago, a wise friend of mine shared a happy secret. She chooses to celebrate her accomplishments with a “Ta-Dah” list. This is the place to write down all of the jobs completed each day. These are little bits of joy, even if not big adventures. I still keep a boring list of “Get ‘em Done” tasks in my planner. But, since I don’t want to just joylessly zombie-walk through my days, I also record Ta-Dah lists to remind me to celebrate the significant things accomplished each day. On productive, high-energy days this list will be filled with projects, business tasks, phone calls completed, and emails sent. On gray days when I’m struggling, I choose to celebrate different significant accomplishments–planning our next adventure, spoiling the dog, fixing daughter’s favorite meal, or simply making a friend smile. I’m choosing to THRIVE by celebrating the little and big things found in the ups and downs of life. What about you?

I would love to celebrate your “Ta-dahs” with you! Please add a comment below to share the little ways you are currently thriving in daily life…

Moving to Our Summer Palace

After finishing our spring adventure on the Appalachian Trail, daughter and I are in the process of moving to our summer palace. It’s located in hilly country at a family-oriented campgrounds an hour and a half from our home. We will have plenty of scope for outdoor adventures with walking trails, a creek to play in, a swimming lake, and plenty of time to socialize with other campers. We will live there full time, with a trip back to town midweek for appointments, friends, and shopping. Dog and Guinea Pig will live there as well. Hubby will join us on the weekends.

What? You don’t consider an RV to be a palace?! After backpacking for 5 weeks, it certainly feels like one to us…

Unlike a shelter along the AT, our RV has four walls, windows, and a door that closes. Plus, the RV has 3 rooms and 400sf of living space compared to one “room” of approx 100 sf shared with 4-6 other hikers.

We have soft beds (rather than throwing our sleeping bags on a hard wood platform).

We have a comfy couch and a full kitchen (much fancier than sitting at a picnic table to boil water to rehydrate a meal).

There is running water, including a flushable toilet and a shower! (Almost double the size of an AT privy, and much nicer than peeing in the woods!)

And our patio has chairs with backs on them (see post about this comfort HERE) which facilitate conversation, reading or lounging. Plus these comfy chairs are easily moved to sit around our fire pit.

Now you understand: we really WILL be living in a “palace” this summer!

(PS–don’t worry, I will soon return to posting stories about our backpacking adventures…)

(For another story about wandering, click HERE.)

Climb Every Mountain…

Lessons for the trail…Lessons for life!

The Appalachian Trail seems to be constantly climbing up one side of a mountain and clambering down the other. This gets exhausting when it is repeated hour after hour after hour. Sometimes we just wanted to drop our packs and quit…but even that is difficult to do when there is little flat ground to be found. A common grumble when hikers get together is wondering just what the trail-makers were thinking and why the trail has to go up and over every mountain along the way rather than staying on ridge lines or meandering along the sides of mountains. Complaints were louder when the trail headed straight up and down. Sections with switchbacks or at least with log or stone steps were much easier to hike. (To be fair, those types of changes would be much harder to build when making trail…)

Climb every mountain, Ford every stream, Follow every rainbow, Till you find your dream. –from Sound of Music

Eventually we figured out how to conquer the steep climbs. It took trial and error to figure out what tips and hints from other hikers worked well for us.

• Never look too far ahead. It can be discouraging to see how far you still have to climb!
• Focus on the next step and the next one. Counting steps can help. (I used 25 steps, not 100 like some hikers suggested.) Take a short break for deep breaths and a gulp of water each time you hit that number.
• Don’t hesitate to take a longer break and take off your pack if you find a good seat (boulder or fallen tree). Just don’t sit too long or your muscles will stiffen up and make the final climb more miserable!
• Readjust the weight you are carrying. Tighter straps on the uphill and looser straps on the downhill use gravity to keep weight better aligned over hips.
• Don’t fight the mountain. Work with the terrain and with your own body to find a rhythm that can be sustained.
• Celebrate when you reach the top! Take time to look back on what you accomplished before moving on to the next challenge. Downhill climbs are also exhausting, but at least there is relief in switching modes and stressing different muscles…

After a few weeks on the trail, we realized our muscles were stronger and our energy had increased. With each mountain we put behind us, our confidence grew. We really CAN do this. In fact, now that we are back home, we quickly get bored with flatland walking. It’s not just the lack of beautiful views. It simply feels too easy. We walk up and down the little hills around here without getting out of breath or tiring muscles.

It was hard to believe we had really hiked the ridgeline above this town!

Looking back, we realize we did not just learn how to thrive while climbing up and down physical mountains. Those same techniques can be applied when facing difficult challenges in life:

• Never look too far ahead
• Focus on the next step
• Take self-care breaks
• Readjust expectations/manage heavy burdens
• Don’t fight against the challenges but find a workable rhythm to move forward
• Celebrate milestones reached and look back on what you accomplished

Wishing all of us JOY in the journey, even in the midst of difficult ups and downs!

(Note: we finished this year’s big adventure on October 21. We will continue posting photos and thoughts from our AT hike for the next few weeks.)

(Read the life lessons we learned on the “Roller Coaster” HERE.)

Life is So Much Simpler in the Woods

True Confession Time: daughter and I are experiencing culture shock. We didn’t expect it to be such a challenge to readjust to life at home. Everything here moves so fast. And there are so many choices. Although many folks have commented that they can’t imagine living in the woods and doing without so many amenities, while hiking on the Appalachian Trail for six weeks we discovered that life is so much simpler in the woods.

This is because travel by its very nature demands simplicity. If you don’t believe this, just go home and try stuffing everything you own into a backpack. This will never work, because no matter how meagerly you live at home, you can’t match the scaled-down minimalism that travel requires.” – Rolf Potts, Vagabonding

There is no set daily schedule in the woods. We paid attention to what our bodies were saying: eating when we were hungry and taking breaks when we were tired. Each day we simply covered the miles needed to reach the next shelter or campsite without needing to organize where to go in what order to accomplish a long to-do list of errands and appointments. By choosing a long-distance hike, we were also choosing to avoid the tyranny of an external calendar or schedule.

Even the days of the weeks began to blur together while hiking. Weekends were no different than weekdays (other than a sudden influx of a zillion dayhikers on Saturdays and Sundays!) Although church defines the weekend for our family when living in town, while on the trail we sang worship songs and enjoyed God’s creation every day. It became a joke between us—when someone asked “what day is it?” we could always tell the section hiker from the long-distance hiker. The former wanted to know the date while the latter was curious about the day of the week. (Daughter’s watch included both which kept us from getting confused.) The biggest difference between one day and the next was the weather.

There are fewer choices in the woods. We wore either our hiking clothes or our camp clothes (with extra layers for warmth as needed.) Each morning we put that day’s snacks in an outer pocket of our packs, merely choosing throughout the day which snack we wanted to eat during each rest break. We ate the same basic meals for dinner every night—based on either instant potatoes or dehydrated rice. Our choice was limited to which flavor meal we wanted to eat each evening. I’m still not back to cooking a widely varied menu of meals at home—there are entirely too many choices to overwhelm me when I enter a huge grocery store and can fill the cart to the brim with food that will not have to be carried on my back until it is ready to be cooked and eaten!

Finally, we lived from sun-up to sun-down in the woods. Occasionally, we used our headlamps to read a few more chapters of a favorite book on the kindle before going to sleep. But most hikers went off to dreamland shortly after the sun went down. Very occasionally a few hikers would stay up past “hiker midnight” (8 or 9 pm) to enjoy telling a few more stories around a campfire. Here at home? The lights are on for hours after dark before we finally wander off to bed. But then we are tired when the alarm goes off the next morning.  Life is ruled by clocks and schedules.

As we readjust to life off the trail, we are trying to lessen the number of choices we have to make each day–getting rid of extra clothes, shortening our to-do lists, making a master list of meals. We look forward to returning to the woods in early summer—happy to live once more with fewer choices. That’s not a hardship but a gift! Life really IS much simpler in the woods…

(Read another post about enjoying life in the woods HERE.)