When I arrived at our Friday night hotel, I was excited about our upcoming 2 day hike. We slept a little late on Saturday, and I took way too long double-checking my gear. We arrived at the trail almost 2 hours later than planned. Knowing that we were behind and that we would have to pick up our pace to get to the shelter before dark didn’t inspire me to move any faster. As we hiked, I felt sluggish, but not because our trek was almost entirely uphill. For the first time that I can recall, I didn’t want to be on a trail.
I was homesick.
For the previous 2 weeks, I worked extremely long hours, arriving in my office early in the morning and leaving at 9:30 pm, 10:30 pm and even 12:30 am. During that 10 day work period, I used my home as a place to refuel on sleep and food. Since the beginning of May, my husband and I have traveled every weekend. We’ve visited our kids in Philadelphia and New York, spent time with my best friend in northern Pennsylvania, and hiked many miles in New Jersey and Virginia. We even enjoyed 3 weeks of vacation, hiking in Georgia, Arizona and California. I have been truly blessed to have had so many adventures away from home over the past 5 months.
On Saturday, as I trudged uphill, I longed to be practicing yoga on my patio. I wanted to be in my kitchen, making garden-fresh tomato sauce and listening to a Michael Connelly book on Audible. I wanted to relax in my family room, snuggled up with the dogs, watching a Netflix marathon of TV shows. Usually hiking is a means for me to feel energized, joyful, at peace and in awe. It is an adventure to trek where I’ve not been before; to see things that I couldn’t do if I wasn’t on foot. Why was this hike different? Is an adventure still an adventure if you do it all of the time? Could it be that there really can be too much of a good thing?
Maybe I was just mentally exhausted from pushing hard at work, and physically tired from constant weekend travel. Regardless of the reason, it has made me think that I need more of the mundane to appreciate the spectacular. Therefore, this next weekend, I am staying home. I am truly looking forward to cleaning, gardening, cooking and non-adventuring so that when I return to the trail, it is once again extraordinary.
