My life is not a straight line.

It has been a twisting, turning, incomprehensible jerking from one point to the next, requiring me to stop, retrace my steps, move forward, realize I am lost.

Nature has always been my sanctuary and my refuge, the place I turn to when I can’t get out of my head. My hikes tend to mirror my life journey to date. I seem to have been born without a great sense of physical direction, so I get lost a lot.

The best advice I’ve ever received was related to getting lost in the woods. My friend told me, “Think about what you do when you get lost in the woods. You don’t keep charging forward. You stop. You look around. And you try to figure out where you are before you move forward.”

That sounded really symbolic, though in my mind I was thinking: No, actually, I panic, pick a random direction and run until I hit some kind of road, then pray that a nice person will come along and pick me up and take me back to my car, which is usually about 13 miles in the opposite direction.

Yes, that happened.

My internal dialogue when hearing this was, however, that too often in life when I feel pressured, my response is to speed up. When I feel I don’t have enough time , when I’m afraid of missing out (the dreaded FOMO), I tend to move even more quickly, to the point of letting my own health, center and sanity slide.

I’m learning, at age 33, that what I actually need to do in these moments of intense pressure is to slow down.

Though counter-intuitive, it’s the only way to make sure I don’t miss something – something really important.

Few know this about me: I struggle with sadness, with anxiety, with crushing doubt and with raging and volatile emotions on a daily basis that I keep well covered.

But it’s not the way I want to live. It’s not authentic to feel one thing and present a different face to the world. So I am starting a blog that is my own accountability check.

I hope this space will give me room to start working through my own inner landscape, finding ways to honor what I’m feeling while also transforming that chaotic energy into lessons that will help me grow rather than dim my light.

In sharing our struggles in a way that is real, authentic, and vulnerable, I believe we strengthen our light – which then lights the way for others.

It’s okay that my life isn’t a straight line. Because in retrospect, I’ve learned that roads with serpentine climbs and hairpin turns often lead to the most soul-filling and spiritually powerful spots.

I believe my journey can be as equally beautiful.

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A NOTE ABOUT US

The real star of this show is my now 8-year-old terrier-border collie mix, Kody.

Kody came to me when he was only a few weeks old. He was so small he could fit in my palm. 

He had been through horrific abuse. He had a spinal cord injury, two broken back legs, and a prolapsed rectum. He could not walk.

I took him to the vet the next day, and the vet worked a miracle. Within a month, he could walk.

He will always be incontinent because of his injuries: he has no feeling in the back half of his body. But he’s the happiest and one of the smartest dogs I know. No walk is complete without frequent stops so he can roll around in grass. He greets everyday with joy and excitement.

He has never let his former injuries or abuse slow him down or stop him. He’s hiked mountains, deserts, valleys, up boulder trails and through streams with me, up to  7 miles at a time, like a pro.

He is my greatest teacher and the absolute most important part of my life. 

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