Scaries and worries and bears, oh my!

The day before starting the JMT 

It’s here! The day before I hit the JMT and I couldn’t be more excited but also freaking the eff out at the same time. When I think  about starting a 200+ mile thru-hike alone, the anxiety is real. 

My entire life, I’ve struggled with constant anxiety and I’ve been trying to process as of late, why. 

I think I’ve realized as I get older, there is what I think of as two me’s constantly battling it out. 

Scaries me vs LFG!!!! me. 

Scaries me has been around since I was a kid. Unlike most kids who do stupid shit and never think about the consequences, that’s all I thought about. I was the biggest chicken there was Taking the training weeks off my bike, fireworks, skiing, roller coasters, driving over hills, driving through mountains, being on a speedboat, you name it I was afraid of it. If I didn’t have a little brother who kinda pushed me to take that plastic sled down the stairs in our house or had ditched  his training wheels before me, I prob would have never done anything with any sort of risk. 

And it carries over into adulthood. I have a tendency to catastrophize, a lot. If there’s a worst case scenario, my brain goes there. That tiny tweak in my calf I  had earlier this week means my tendon is prob gonna snap off my leg in middle of nowhere. The signs all over Yosemite saying bear activity is high triggered bear attack nightmares all last night. It compounds quickly when I think about being a woman doing this alone. Yeah, the scaries that play out in my head can get pretty out of control if I let them. 

But then there’s the part of me that I’ve developed as an adult that loves a new adventure. That feels like scaries me kinda robbed myself of doing things that put myself out there. It started when I rented  a VW Campervan for a trip over  Labor Day weekend and drive to camp in Crested Bitte with my dog. The first night I was camping, I was terrified, spending a lot of time hiding in the van with the doors locked worried about everything and everyone around me. I eventually finished the trip and realized how safe it was. Nothing bad happened. What the hell have I been so scared of all my life? That same winter I bought a VW Campervan of my own and took it on all sorts of trips. It inspired me to do more stuff I had been afraid of doing like quit my job at a toxic ad agency and go freelance. To take it on an even bigger trip to the Grand Canyon. To signing up for backpacking classes and eventually thru-hiking the Colorado Trail last summer with my friend Maria. I even headed down Patagonia last December to Trek the W in Torres del Paine with a guide. The past few years, LFG me has been thriving. 

But this time I won’t have my van, or my dog, a guide  or my friend with me. It’s just me, alone on a thru-hike.Nothing to protect or distract me.  Alone with nothing by my thoughts. Easier than ever for the scaries to freak me out if I let it. Eeek. Anxiety. Catastrophizing. The worry the old me comes back and I give into it and quit. 

I know this trip is gonna be a constant inner battle of telling my scaries me to chill the eff out and reminding myself that what scares me is all in my head. Reminding myself that the backcountry is full of kind people who show up for each other should something happen. Reminding myself that the backcountry is safer than walking around in Los Angeles where I live! And reminding myself there’s tons of solo thru-hiking women every year doing this, it’s inspiring. 

So many of us let the scaries win.

We let them stop us from living our fullest, happiest lives. As I think about it, what scares me more is living a life too scared to do anything. To get to the end and realize it was all spent worrying vs doing. 

Te biggest reminder of all is that I”m  so lucky I even get to do this in the first place.