Why I'm hiking ~ Part 1

Over the next few weeks while we prepare to launch our fundraising campaign I want to take sometime to tell you all a little about us and why we are planning this adventure.

I have four driving goals in sharing this adventure with others:

• To inspire and show people the magic of dogs, especially rescue dogs.
• To use my passion for dog training and knowledge of dog behavior to demonstrate how people can raise & train their dogs to be well mannered adventure companions that also “leave no trace”.
• To use my passion for adventure to fundraise for an amazing organization that helps not only to rescue dogs, but people too.
• To use my story to help empower women to take on adventures of their own.

I’m going to start today with the last on that list, because it is the story of how I came to this place where I am ready to take on the chart topper of my list and for some folks it maybe a bit of a surprise to know where I was when this story began.

Many years ago I was on a walk in the woods with my dogs, and I came across this sign on a trail. It listed the mileage from this point north to Canada and south to Mexico and I first learned of the Pacific Crest Trail. I stood there shocked and amazed, what?!?!?! from this spot I could walk all the way to Canada or Mexico. I knew instantly I had to do that someday.

That dream became this fantasy that just lived up there in the ethers, something to day dream about and distract myself from the sadness and depression that gobbled up most of my time. Because you see, when I stumbled across that sign I was what I considered to be the furtherest thing from someone who could actually hike across a country. I was overweight, approaching middle age, and a two mile walk left me exhausted and spent for the day.

I can still remember the moment, the cracking point. I was standing in line at the bookstore, my arms loaded with self help books promising to solve all my problems and reveal all the secrets to success. I stared at the cover of the magazine, an Outdoor adventure type magazine, with a picture of this girl, rock climbing. I was so angry. My belly boiled as I thought about my life, and how if it had not gone the way it did instead of how it should have, that could be me. That’s what I came into this world as. A spitfire that climbed up everything, fought my way onto all boy baseball and football teams, got into fights with any boy telling me I couldn’t do something. Always sporting bloody knees and scraped up elbows, most at home in the mud. But along the way, life happened, abuses, chaos, hardships and here I found myself, life half over and not at all living the life I had once dreamed of. I existed. But I did not really live. 

I don’t know why I did it, perhaps desperation shoved me over the edge, or maybe I finally found some courage and strength. Maybe it was just a crazy passing thought that for some reason I quickly acted on before I lost track of it. As I stood there looking at the cover of that magazine, I decided, maybe I’ll just pretend I am. Why not? I’ll just go down to the gear shop, act like I know what I am doing and pretend I am an outdoor adventurer. I’ll buy somethings so I can play the part, if only for myself to enjoy a bit of a dress up game. I walked into a gear store and perused the racks, walked the aisles looking at all of this stuff I had no idea what to do with. Tiny stoves that looked complicated and confusing, so many shiny little things that I had no idea what one did with. 

I quickly scanned the clothing racks and felt a deep chocking shame seeing I was 5 sizes over the biggest anything they carried in this store and quietly slunk away from those sleek technical textiles. After a bit I settled on my purchases, a pair of hiking boots, some fancy super expensive wool socks and a trail guide book for the area. I spent a lot of time at book store magazine racks pouring through the outdoor section, gazing at the covers, thumbing through the pages looking at images of the real adventure people, that I obviously could never be, often walking away even more depressed. But I kept on pretending anyway. 

That spring I set out to pretend to be a hiker. I’d pick out hikes in the book and drag my husband out into the wilds. All summer long we picked away at the “easy” hikes, then into the more difficult ones. For my birthday that year he bought me a Camelback and to that I added trekking poles, still a long away from being able to actually buy any clothing that would help me look the part. It was always such an awkward thing to experience, feeling like an intruder, an impostor as I gave store owners money. But I kept at my delusion and made plans all winter long on what hikes I’d do come summer, the audacity to add mountain summits we could hike up without technical skill to the list. Even venturing out a few times on snowshoes! 

I discovered something that next year, I actually could do all those things that the media images led me to believe only tiny super fit young people could do. And I started to see other people all shapes, sizes and ages out there also doing these things. Oh how I wished I knew that sooner, that I could belong in this place, even at my size. Really advertisers, can’t you risk just showing a few normal folks of varying sizes out there? We all like to buy clothes, and man would it have boosted my hopes those early days when I needed it most. All summer long we chipped away at my list, the peaks got higher, the trails longer, the difficulty level increasing. And something amazing started to happen, we started, passing those young, tiny, people dressed in their technical textiles on the way up summits. 

Wow, middle aged overweight folks can actually not only do these things, but maybe even do them well. Over the next few years, it happened, I actually became the person who could be in those magazines. I became a rock climber, peak bagger, backpacker, real outdoor adventurer who can walk into a gear shop and buy clothes off the rack! But what I want you all to know, is I was able to be all of that from the beginning, (well except for the buying clothes off the rack part) I just didn’t know that because society and advertising just subtly washes our brains to think otherwise. I fit into the technical textiles now, because sinking into the adventurer role shaped my body into a smaller size, but even at the larger size, I was doing what I do now. 

I want you all to know that, because so often other women talk to me now, don’t know the me I was and I can see that look and hear that tone in their voice as they set themselves in a different category because they don’t climb mountains or run marathons. I want women to know I wasn't always this and I didn’t change because my body changed, my body changed because I changed, I started taking on my dreams and challenging myself with that old lady overweight body. It’s so easy to get caught in the space of thinking you can’t do something because you don’t fit the mold of what the examples you are shown, but I am here to say, you can. And you just might be amazed to learn all sorts others, just like you, that don’t fit the mold already do that thing and you just might find a whole new set of best friends just waiting to be discovered when you step into that dream of yours. And you just might be amazed to learn what all you already are and just haven’t discovered yet. 

This past year I received a very large wake up call and reminder that somedays are not infinite. That the dreams that matter the most to you, need to be at the top of the priority list. Because as I sat there waiting to have MRI's with a diagnosis like brain tumor floating around the room, which thankfully was not the case,  all I could think was why, oh why did I leave this sitting there all those years I was healthy and able? 

And I want to share a couple important things I learned along the way. When I was younger I was thin here or there, I would do the usual crash diet, work hard, starve myself, all those times I thought the answer to all my problems was my size. That if I just looked the right way, all my sadness would leave and I would find my self worth like a pot of gold tied to those size 6 pants. Yeah, that never worked. There was no bag of self worth waiting with the tiny pants, and no matter how thin I got it was never enough to fix the holes in my soul and so each time I'd return to eating away my feelings only to end up even heavier in the long run. 

To be real honest here I also have to share that something else really big always happened each time I lost weight, and it wasn't until this last journey that began 8 years ago that I was equipped and ready to face it. As a survivor of sexual assault it was absolutely terrifying allowing myself to be considered "attractive". Each of those early times the weight came off and the male attention started I had no idea all the self protective behaviors that triggered inside of me. I was always far more comfortable in the invisibility and dismissal that comes with being overweight. 

(photos by Lauren Trantham, The Women's Photographer)

What I wished I knew earlier and wished was better understood, it's all the same me, I mean obviously I change, I grow, I evolve. But my heart has always felt all the same joys and all the same hurts no matter my pants size. My hopes and dreams, the same. My fears, insecurities and past emotional scars, all the same no matter what I look like when the rest of the world gazes my way. Sure, it is physically easier to climb a mountain hauling less of me up there, and I feel better in all my athletic endeavors the fitter I am, which ultimately is why the weight came off and mostly stays off. 

I now seem to have a revolving ten pounds. When life sends me health issues, or hammers away with many emotional challenges the 10 comes along to keep me company. At first this used to freak me out, just sure that meant I was on my way all the way back to square one. It took me a long time to make peace with that, to be know I'd be ok even if that was the case, that I would still be worthy of love since as I said, it's always still me in here, no matter how the outside ebbs and flows. But my natural state of being is that little spitfire that wants to eat mountains for breakfast so as I am able to again, the 10 slips back away. And these days, I am actually finally ok with it. And that self love, that's taken me so very long to find, well it keeps me from crashing off those 10lbs with a crazy fast diet. It relaxes, knows the weight will fall away with the steps I take. It takes in the healthy food happily and without judgement. 

It's taken so much work to peel off the traumas, to sift through the confusion society sends women's way about who and what we are supposed to be and look like, to discover who I am and what I want, to find a sense of safety in an unsafe world, to realize what self worth even looks and tastes like. I wish that all wasn't so hard, trust me, climbing mountains is easier than all that;) 

Thank you for reading my words and sharing in my journey if you made it all this way :)