Life

A month in the mountains. By yourself. What if someone comes to your camp? What if a bear attacks you? All these thoughts flooded her head as she pulled up to the bottom of the mountain. No buildings, all trees. Such an unusual sight considering where she departed from. She’d camped in the past with her family. Never alone though. A whole month. 

At the start, the days passed slowly. Deathly slow. She was stressed from everything she was missing in her life. All the emails piling up. But this is what she wanted. Right?

Every day she spent in the same place. For hours. Because it's what she “wants.” Thousands of minutes. Hundreds of hours, and for what? 

Camping gave her hours of silence. Silence where she had no responsibilities to attend to. Silence where she got to take in what was surrounding her. Flooding her vision from every angle. Beautiful nature that cured her homesickness in an instant. When she decided to move into the city to take her new office job, the lack of nature in her new life never crossed her mind. Is this what you want?

Soon after the worries, came peace. Time would keep moving whether she was worried or not. The month slowly started to dwindle down. Every day she thought about the same thing, her life. 

When she first came on the trip she had only one thing in mind, escaping her current reality. She didn't expect to find what she did. Peace. 

What came next in her life didn't shock her, but shocked others. She quit her job and moved back to the countryside where she pursued a job she got berated for in the past for wanting. Park Ranger. 

She realized during this trip that life’s too short to hate your everyday obligations. She knew something had to change when she was more excited to clean her house rather than go to work.

Life’s simply too short to not live it to the fullest.