(You can find an intro. to my 2020 project here.)
“Go hiking alone…”
I love running and I love hiking. I love them both with good company or completely alone. Except the hiking. I’ve never hiked alone. The opportunity hadn’t presented itself until a year ago, but even as the chances came, I always found a reason not to take them. I finally realized I was scared. Scared to be alone in the woods. Or maybe just scared to be alone. You see a run is usually a short thing and tied to my athletic goals. My runs have also been a time for self-reflection and mental unwinding in the middle of a household where I was never alone. Hiking though? That was often family time. Hiking alone? Well, that was a different matter. Hours alone in the woods with my thoughts and without the distraction of my running goals to focus on. Just me. My breath. And my thoughts.
Now back to being scared to be alone in the woods. I was concerned about what might happen if I was hurt, assaulted or lost. I quickly realized that it’s not just couples or friend groups going hiking. I mean, really!? Did I expect that I wouldn’t be doing things alone now that I was single?! As though single people didn’t go hiking unless they found a friend to join them. And let’s be honest, as a group your odds against a bear or other danger is better, but not dramatically better. A few small safety steps were all that I needed, and I was careful to follow them for my first solo hike. Tell someone where I was going… check. Know the trail… check. Stay on the trail… check. So, when I saw the forecast for Saturday was going to be exceptionally warm, I made a commitment to myself and prepared for hiking.
The week before my hike I read a Twitter post by Gretchen Baskerville. She discussed how many people lack confidence in the early part of a divorce and fresh singleness. You’re handling things you’ve never had to handle before and it’s overwhelming. Her advice was to just keep trying to grow in that confidence and keep doing those things that intimidate you. If I was wobbly in my resolve to go on a hike, reading those words solidified in my mind how much I needed to do this independent thing. I needed to do a thing that intimidated me, even if it seemed small to someone else. I needed to stretch and grow in order to grow my confidence.
One of the many things I love about hiking is that smell when you enter the woods. Fresh air, moisture, leaves, wood- whatever that blend is, it sparks my senses awake. Stepping into the woods and stretching my legs up the trail was like visiting with an old, peaceful friend. I found my rhythm and set out. Within 15 minutes I noticed how busy my mind was and the difficulty I was having controlling my thoughts. I prayed. And I prayed some more. Every thought I caught I prayed over and handed to God. I asked him to bless this silly, little personal exercise I was pursuing. I asked him to heal my bum knee. I handed him the heavy stuff. I asked him to teach me something from my time trudging through the woods.
Here is one of the funny things about my solo hike. An exceptionally warm day in January will bring out a lot of hikers and I ended up seeing more people than the average amount on the trail that day. I wasn’t the only one solo hiking. Another interesting observation? Of the people in pairs or groups, many of them weren’t talking. They were together, but quiet and alone with their thoughts.
I paused to enjoy a few vistas along the way and reached the ridge of the knob nearly 15 minutes short of the time I needed to turn back. I was pushing myself to go as far as I had mentally outlined, as though I was required to do every minute I possibly could before twilight. Why do I do that to myself?! Why do I push harder and harder, as though I haven’t done something well enough or “the right way” because I did it differently than I had planned, or the way others do it? A few more minutes along the ridge trail and I suddenly realized, I was done. I had what I came for. I had the inner satisfaction of accomplishing a thing I set out to do, a small personal mountain and some brave forward movement. My fear had been conquered and I knew I’d go back out alone on the trail another day. My mind and heart were at peace after 90 minutes of fresh air, exercise and prayer. The way back down was faster and more relaxed. There was more chatting with God, but mostly I took in the bliss of doing a thing I loved with a calm confidence.
Looking back as I write it’s that, calm confidence, that I want to take with me into my everyday life. A peaceful mind, moving about in the world with a quiet steadiness that can’t be shaken by circumstances. That first step into an intimidating action feels like a momentary dive off a cliff. What if we learned to lean into that feeling of the floor dropping out? Take action despite it? What if we rest in knowing that our confidence doesn’t come from it all working out after that first step, but that no matter what we find on the other side we have a God going with us who sees and knows it all? A God who’s already been there?!
Confidence… experience yields it after countless cliff jumps. But confidence isn’t rooted in the jump. It’s rooted in knowing Who’s going to catch me no matter what I find at the bottom. Knowing that God goes with me and I won’t handle it alone no matter what I find.