Anyone who really knows me and I mean really really knows me, knows that I may be mostly organized but I do not prepare for things in life. I don’t plan, I don’t save, I simply jump in eyes closed, both feet first into the deep end. This is a quality that makes my husband cringe every time I come to him with a new idea.

It may bug the sh*& out of my husband but when I get a new idea into my head, I don’t let go of it, like a Pitbull hanging onto a strangers leg with treats in his pocket.

After a little time though he comes to except it and becomes supportive. Half the time he thinks it was his idea. I just tell him “great idea, we should definitely do that.“

There are also times that I play with an idea, and then I’m lucky enough to have people in my life who are willing to slingshot me into taking action. I would have to say the vast variety of friends that we have in our lives are real reasons we get to do so much. They all inspire me to do something different. Because it’s my nature I just want to try it on and see if it fits. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.

Which leads me to hike the Appalachian Trail. My good friend and her sister have decided to take on section hiking the AT. This is something that my husband and I talked about for years. When we did art shows we would travel through some of these towns where through hikers will drop in for a hot meal some laundry and pick up the next box of supplies for the next section. As we drove past the hostels, we would say to one another, “this will be us some day.”

It was always a dream of ours to do this together. But this time jumping in feet first – eyes closed he can’t join me because he’s made other plans for the same week. With his career as a LT in the Fire Dept. it is difficult to schedule anything and neither of us wanted to give up our separate but exciting trips.

Needless to say he’s extremely bothered that I’m starting this without him. Of course I’ll restart it again anytime he wants to. He but I can’t let this opportunity to be slingshotted into a dream I’ve had for 30 years to slip away because I have to schedule my life around his life.

We are in the throws of a pandemic which is not allowing us to travel to the surf spots we had saved for last year in other countries. This year we will be grounded in the U.S. for travel. This works out fine though, we had a tone of places we wanted to visit with the kids around here, so now we can just git-er-dun.

Once on that mountain, the reality of the situation is that there is no preparing for this…. This trip pushed all of my boundaries, physical and mental. We each carried 28-30 lbs on our backs. Some of the trail was easy but I would say over half was quite a challenge. After hiking 22 miles I had to call it quits because my feet were wrecked. Every step was painful by the third day. I do recognize this was an equipment issue. I am fully ready and willing to make this hike again. I actually cant wait to get out there again.

Pushing out of our personal, emotional, physical and mental boundaries leads us to recognize our greatest strengths. What pushing boundaries does for me in nature brings me to realize how truly connected we all are. It also make me realize we all are capable of surviving great injury, i should emphasize here injuries can be physical or mental. We can survive and we can use what we learn to meet our potential.

So the next time you get a hair brained idea, jump in hard and fast! Make it happen! Find a tribe to go along with your adventure. If no one bites, find another tribe. Its ok to have more than one, two or three tribes. Life is beautiful but short. I realized this at 20 when I lost my father. WE all have one life to live, lets make it count!