A New Adventure Begins

As many of you know, last year I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail with Roxy. Since finishing in October, I spent 4 months working at Pier 1 (and spending more money than I earned) before beginning a career as a middle school science teacher at Raymond Park Middle School in Indianapolis. Life off the trail has been thrilling and exhilarating in unique ways, but as the summer approaches I am ready to return to living the life I like best.

Life off trail has thrown more challenges at me than I ever encountered while on my thru-hike. Mentally, “normal” life pushes me to my limits and forces me to deal with issues I usually wouldn’t encounter in the woods.  Most notably I have had to face life without Roxy since the beginning of May. After a visit to the groomer, a tumor was discovered on Roxy’s back paw. I immediately had her admitted for surgery and the tumor has been removed, so she should be ok for the near future. Unfortunately due to working a full-time job, I couldn’t give her the proper care and attention she would need so she has been at my mom’s recovering.

What most people don’t know, is that Roxy is not just my pet, she is my service dog. I hate advertising it, because I hate answering the question "what's wrong with you?" As normal as I may seem, my mental health is not so great, and Roxy is the constant in my life that keeps me functioning like an ordinary person. Without her that past few weeks have been tough. I’ve thrown myself into my job and spent as much time as possible at school to avoid being alone. I’ve survived, but I can not wait to be reunited with my better half. I was lucky enough to have a friend and her dogs stay with me for a few days, and that helped me reset and get life relatively back on track. Today was the first day I finally cleaned my apartment, did dishes and laundry, went grocery shopping and cooked a meal. I know that shouldn’t seem like a major accomplishment but without Roxy basic life functions pretty much stopped. I have 3 more days of work in Indy, and then I will thankfully be back with Roxy. Unfortunately living at my mom’s without any job or purpose, Roxy is slightly losing her mind as well, so I am hopeful that once we are together again she will remember how life is supposed to be and fall back into old routines.

Queen of everything. Life without Roxy's epic strength and guidance is tough.

The prospect of returning to the simple life has me reinvigorated and motivated to keep moving forward. My best friend was recently inspired to reinvent herself and pursue the life she has always dreamed of (sound familiar?). I am thrilled that she asked me to be part of her journey and together we will be thru-hiking the Colorado Trail this summer. She covered the details of what a thru-hike is and what we will be encountering pretty well on her blog so I won’t re-hash all that here. Since she is going to do an outstanding job of recounting trail life on her blog, I’ll probably use this blog to focus more on personal challenges and accomplishments. Feelings are gross, self-pity is pathetic, and talking about mental health is frustrating, but at the same time I think it is important to be genuine and truthful about struggles and motivations for hiking. Life always gets better when your only worry is “where is the next water source?” so I can’t wait to get back on the trail.

I already covered a lot of the basics of trail life, gear, and day to day routines in previous blogs about the Appalachian Trail, but if you have any questions don’t hesitate to send me a message or comment below. I am always happy to share my insights and opinions on backpacking, dog training, and anything else related to life.