An Ordinary Odyssey

 

I was part of a big, well-run event on the Ice Age Trail through the Northern Kettle Moraine State Forest put on by Badger Trails. Some people backpacked, some day hiked, some camped in tents. I opted for car camping, sleeping on the comfy bed in the back of my SUV. My original plan was to backpack, working on getting used to carrying weight and pushing myself physically. But time caught up with me and I was nowhere near prepared for that! I want to train, but I need to find the fine line between pushing myself and destroying myself. So I pulled it back a bit and decided to just test a simplified SUV camping set-up to prepare for my next solo Colorado road trip in June.

I did sign up for all the long-distance hike options, which meant putting in some real miles across hilly Ice Age terrain. If you’re not familiar, the Ice Age Trail doesn’t wind gently through the woods and politely show you the landscape. It has a habit of taking you up and over every glacial landform it can find. It doesn’t care about switchbacks or gentle detours. It wants you to feel the land in your bones, not just see it. So that’s what I did. Again and again, all weekend long!

The terrain was classic Wisconsin glacial, covered with Kames, Kettle Lakes, and Eskers. If I hadn’t been working with my trekking poles, I probably would have had to scrabble up or down some of the steeper sections. We hiked through the entirety of the Greenbush and Parnell Ice Age Segments, and I tacked on a small loop of Dundee Kame, the 3rd highest kame in the Kettle Moraine State Forest units.

Despite the elevation gain and all the mileage, my legs, hips, and spirit held up great. My feet, though? They have filed an official complaint. They started their protest somewhere around the middle of day two and just never stopped. The last 10 mile hike on Sunday started out with a 1.9 mile road walk and those dogs were barking within minutes! That’s what I get for doing all this in cheap walking shoes. They’ve always served me well before this, but that was on individual day hikes. Doesn’t seem to work on back-to-back hikes. I need to upgrade my shoes, and soon, so I can break them in before Colorado next month. Blisters are one thing. Losing toenails is another, and I have a feeling with all the big plans I have for training hikes, that’ll happen in these shoes.

Of course, this wasn’t just a physical test. Long solo hikes have a way of becoming therapy sessions. In some of the podcasts and Facebook groups I am for training for big hiking challenges, a lot of people have talked about the monotony of training and how this is actually really critical to push through and learn to deal with. The rhythm of movement and constant silence with nothing but your own thoughts to keep you company can alternate between being peaceful, boring, or cracking something open inside you. Somewhere on day two, while I was alone for a solid stretch, I found myself in one of those reflective moods. One thing circling in my brain was a phrase my boss had recently shared in a reflection for our newsletters: Whose fear are you living?

It hit hard. I thought about how much of my own hesitation throughout my life has come from fears that weren’t even mine. I’ve spent a lot of time surrounded by people whose default setting is anxiety, who treat new experiences with suspicion, who see physical effort as unnecessary, and who think doing anything solo as a woman is asking to be murdered. And over time, I absorbed it. I carried their fear like it was mine. It shaped the way I talked to myself. It made me second-guess the things I wanted to try.

This weekend wasn’t the first time I’ve done something that made other people nervous. I’ve taken big solo road trips before. I hike solo all the time. And every time, someone close to me seemed frankly terrified for me. I used to carry that with me. Their worry, their anxiety. I thought maybe they were seeing something I wasn’t. I would see ghosts and danger where nothing existed. This trip was the first time I started to name that dynamic for what it is though. Borrowed fear. To realize how much someone else’s fear, especially from someone you are close to, can rub off if you’re not careful. And how slowly, step by step, I’ve been shedding it without even realizing.

Some people around me still think trips like this sound like a bad idea. “You’re camping alone? With strangers? Won’t you be exhausted? Isn’t that a bit extreme?” they ask. But it doesn’t feel extreme to me anymore. It feels like training. For my body, yes. But also for the life I want to live. One where courage is louder than fear. One where I get to decide what’s worth doing, even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else.

As I hiked, I also kept coming back to an idea from a book I’m reading by Mel Robbins called The Let Them Theory. Her framework is simple:  if people want to judge you, misunderstand you, gossip about you, ignore you, betray you…let them. Let them show you who they are. Let them do whatever they are gonna do and release yourself from the stress of that. When you accept that you can’t change anyone but yourself and your own actions, you can find peace. And then flip it. Let me. Let me grow. Let me take risks. Let me act out my values.

The two ideas clicked into place.
Let them be afraid. Let them question it. Let them sit it out.
I don’t have to carry their fear anymore.
Let me fail, succeed, change my mind, lace up bad shoes, and hike anyway.

That’s what I’ve been untangling for years, the fear I picked up without realizing. Other people’s anxiety bleeding into my choices. Their caution echoing in my head like a voiceover I never asked for. That kind of borrowed fear can shape an entire life if you’re not careful.

I’m also realizing that if I want to keep leveling up, I need to be around people who are doing the same. Right now, many of the people around me see this kind of physical goal as wild, almost impossible. I need more people in my life who respond with, “Cool! Can I join you?!” Over the past couple of years, I’ve subconsciously distanced myself from relationships that no longer align with my values or aspirations. There’s a concept by Jim Rohn that keeps proving itself true to me: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” The people we surround ourselves with shape the person we become, for better or worse. I 100% believe this is true and have seen it play out many times.

It’s all an energy loop. If you’re constantly surrounded by people who complain, you start complaining more. If you’re surrounded by people who see danger everywhere, you start seeing threats that aren’t there. BUT. If you’re surrounded by positive, determined goal-getters who think hiking 30 miles in a weekend sounds like a reasonable way to spend time? You become that too!

Learning to trust my intuition has been key in recognizing when a relationship is no longer serving me. Even when I still care for these people, I’ve learned to love them from a distance. This space allows me to protect my energy and focus on relationships that uplift and challenge me in ways that matter. I want this chapter of my life to be defined by focus, motivation, and stretching my limits through outdoor adventures. So I need to surround myself with people who understand the joy of a summit view earned through sweat, or the peace that comes after miles of solo hiking.

So that’s what I’m working on. Not just trail miles and gear upgrades, but reassessing the people and activities I engage with. Surrounding myself with voices that call me forward into the life I daydream of, instead of holding me back into the same life I’ve always had. Let them live in fear if they want to. But let me hike my own way out of it.

---