I’m just your normal every day girl who happens to love the mountains. But like most of you, I work. So I don’t get to spend every waking hour where my heart would love to be! But the free time that I do have I love to spend in the mountains. I can’t wait every year when I take off a week and spend the entire time exploring the amazing mountains. This normal every day girl loves to be outside. Yes I have grit. Yes I have strength and endurance. But I’m also not a mountain warrior who goes from 14’er to 14’er. I’m still working on hiking my first 14’er. It will happen but it’s been a process. Last summer-it was an ankle tendon injury. This summer it was the forest fire smoke and my asthma flaring that has prevented me. However, one thing this normal every day girl refuses to do-GIVE UP! BACK DOWN! There is no challenge I won’t stare down. Because guess what? Normal people can wander into amazing adventures!!!
So this summer when my husband and I were on our week long vacation we decided to do a hike that was rated-HARD! We decided this while eating pizza! The hike in its entirety would be around 8 miles. Our reasoning-why not at least try?! And so we planned to attempt this hike of 8 miles up to an alpine lake and challenge ourselves to do something harder than we had ever attempted.
It was a beautiful day. We took our time. We got lost at one point and went half a mile out of the way, so it ended up being around 9 miles for us. And can I be honest? On this particular day, I wanted to quit so many times. It was steep, it was long, my feet hurt, and mentally my body was screaming-you can’t do this. And when I say it was steep-I literally mean it was steep all the way up!!!! The final part being the hardest. At one point, I stopped sat on a log and wanted to quit. My husband sat down beside me and said-Are you ready to go again?! You didn’t come all this way to quit did you? I sighed and with all the energy I could muster continued on. And guess what? One foot in front of the other-we got to the top! It was a triumph moment. My feet hurt so bad I put them in the ice cold alpine water just to numb them up. But my heart was so happy. I had triumphed. This normal every day girl did it. That day I triumphed and became more of a mountain warrior!
I share this story with you to encourage you. Yes you!!!! You can do anything you set your mind to. You might feel normal, but inside of you lies a warrior. And I encourage you to adventure on and experience triumph moments!!!!
