Hi Queen,
Come back here when you can feel yourself existing passively — too scared to live, and too scared to die. Let’s wake up, together.
I was scared I would encounter a bear or mountain lion.
I was scared I would pop a tire on the rocky mountain road and have to walk nine miles to ask for help because I don’t think I have a spare tire, nor do I know how to change one.
I was scared of a lot of things that day, but more than anything, I was scared of encountering a man and becoming his prey.
I was sitting on the highest point of the mountain against a couple large rocks, nestled into the edge of the cliff when I heard voices on the path below. I felt lightheaded as I realized that the moment I feared was now approaching me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing I could do to control what happened next.
I took a breath. And another. I said a prayer. I decided that if this was the day for me to be raped and thrown over the side of a mountain, then so be it.
I know those words may feel a bit jarring to read.
Intrusive thoughts are like that.
I make peace with the possibility, because there are things we can control in life and things we cannot. I can control whether or not I choose to travel and hike alone as a small female, and if I do, I control how I prepare.
I cannot control who decides to hike at the same time and place as me. I cannot control their intentions or moral compass. I cannot control unforeseen events.
I can only control ME. And me? She loves adventurous, riveting moments of risk that delicately stand right on the line between reasonable and foolish.
I live to explore, to let my curiosity lead until I feel alive in this body. It would be a disservice, an act of obedience even, to starve this part of my spirit. So here I am, on the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains, anxiously awaiting the company I hear below.
I continue listening to the voices as panic starts to stir again.
Do I make myself known before they see me, so I don’t scare them?
Do I say hi, make conversation or keep to myself?
My thoughts begin to spin so fast they pull my mind from my body, so I look towards the sky, lean back on the rocks, and close my eyes. Silence hugs the sound of the coursing river below as I realize my only solace is this very moment, and the warmth of the sun.
I stay still, and let go.
I drift off into the darkness behind my eyelids and I’m not sure how much time passes before I disrupt my own trance with an abrupt cough. As I reach for my water, I notice movement in the corner of my eye.
I turn around, and there he is.
A man with dark curly hair pulled back from his face with a red nylon headband. He has hiking sticks in each hand and tattoos crawling up each arm. There’s no time to think before I hear myself say, “Hello.”
He glances my way, unstartled.
He smiles.
He casually lifts a hand and says hi.
He says, “Have a nice day.”
He walks away.
I look around, searching for what to say before I realize he’s already gone. Just like that, my most tantalizing fear came and went. It was the shortest moment of my day, less than a blip. Not even worth a mention.
Isn’t it bizarre, the way there are exponentially more catastrophes living inside collective human thought than out in the world? Isn’t it humbling, to be one of the receiver of a fate that’s easy to swallow? Isn’t it comforting to believe that you’re divinely protected and provided for?
At least, that’s what moments like the cough tell me.
I was too scared to think clearly about how to initiate normal human interaction, but my cough broke the silence at the perfect time. I didn’t plan it, nor could I have predicted it, yet it was perfectly timed. Perfectly placed.
Unpredictability can be terrifying, but it can also swoop in and save. Regardless of what we’re able to see, there is always divine orchestration at work, and the more we try to stay in complete control, the more miracles we reject.
It may have been safer to hang back instead of go on a solo adventure, and sometimes that is the better move. But I believe we’re here to live. Not to exist, but to live in these human bodies as long as they beat and breathe.
Sometimes I notice myself feeling both too scared to live and too scared to die. Sometimes I feel I’m more fear than I am life.
To fear is natural, which means the remedy must be super natural. It takes something bigger, something beyond to fill a spirit with strength when the flesh falls weak. Like a mighty river rushing in, God floods out all the fear. I don’t know anything else that can do that.
To me, this is faith. It’s the surrender, the conscious return to a love that wraps the whole world like a blanket.
I’ve spent all day trying to remain tucked underneath this blanket, and now the sun is sinking in the sky, the air becoming chilled. I’m longing deeply for comfort that I don’t have to fight for. I want to race nightfall to the bottom of the mountain, but I remind myself that I came here for the sunset.
I left my family, drove for hours, paid for an AirBnb, risked my safety and sat on this cliff for over two hours — all for a mountain top sunset. Surely I can last another twenty minutes.
I count my breaths and close my eyes, hoping that the next time they open I see water colors strewn about the sky, freeing me to go home. I can barely tolerate the fearful scenarios about what could be waiting for me in the dusk hour on the way down. I keep breathing but the stories keep intruding, so I sing. I sing about miracles and faithfulness and love until my fear lowers like a thermometer.
I open my eyes and there it is, a dreamy orangesicle soup stretching across the sky atop the clouds hovering above the mountains. I lift my phone and smile for a photo, concealing my fear with surprising ease, just like we do.
I turn and stand to pack my backpack when I hear a rustle in the bushes.
I was prepared for this, expecting it even, so I clap and hiss and squint as a brown figure backs away through the leaves. I’m officially ready to get the fuck off out of here.
I clap with every step I take down the trail in efforts not to startle any predators. I look down at my phone to see the top right corner showing a daunting “7%.” I have two more miles before reaching the trailhead, then an hour drive through backroads I’m unfamiliar with.
I haven’t had service all day, what could be draining my battery this quickly?
Will I make it home?
What if I get lost in the middle of nowhere with a dead phone?
The fear begins to swell as I begin to breathe. I sing. I breathe. I run. Repeat, all the way to the bottom.
I slip out of the forest the same time the sun slips behind the earth, and I watch the faded candy hues linger in the sky. My next thought stops me in my tracks.
The sunset view from the parking lot is better than the view from the summit.
All that fear I wrestled.
All that risk.
If not the sunset, what was it for?
Was it worth it?
If so, what was it worth?
You tell me.
(Seriously, tell me what you think. What would have made the hike worth it to you?)
Leave a comment below or email me: funsquad@karithefuncoach.com