Originally Posted November 14, 2016

When I removed my Chacos for the first time in two weeks and washed the last remains of Colorado away in the cheap motel bathroom I felt my heart break, truly break for the first time in a long while. 
A few months ago Jacob and I left our beloved Blue Ridge Mountains for a two-week adventure across the country to Colorado. This was supposed to just be an adventure, a vacation, an escape from the world for a little while. It turned out to be so much more for me. We spent the days fishing and the nights drinking local beer. We said "hello" and "goodbye" to more brook trout and cutthroat than I can count. We met people and had conversations I'll never forget. 

    But what happened to my soul far surpassed those brief encounters. There is a beauty there unlike anything I'd ever seen. A freedom that hit my heart like a shock. It made me start to question existence and life and all of those persistent existential problems. I started to remember every John Muir quote and thought, and it finally made sense. I understood it. It only took one brief second, standing on the side of a mountain and taking a moment to look at the country I was standing in. From then on, the rest of the trip, I couldn't  focus on anything but soaking in all the beauty. 

    So, that's where the questions come in. Have I been so busy all these years with a “goal”, with stress, with a distraction that I wasn't truly seeing everything that's around me? Have I actually been missing out all these years? Seeing the beauty, but never actually absorbing it? Society has conditioned us into believing you must travel a certain path, with a certain “job,” a certain “title,” and a certain amount of “income.” When we don’t meet those societal expectations, we’re told that we have failed at life. I have spent all of my thirty years agreeing with that, making myself completely mad trying to be and have and do what I was “supposed” to. I never paid attention to what I wanted to do, only about hitting that mark that would somehow earn me a place at the successful table.

    The drive home was absolutely depressing. Loathing the impending normalcy that was to follow. The routine. 

Honestly, I'm sick of "being an adult." I'm sick of getting up every day with no purpose or passion. 
    Colorado changed me. I pray for the better. To be braver, to pursue my passion, to not fear to fail. 
Because I may fail. I may return to the "real world," tail between my legs in shame searching out a 9-5 once again.

But for now, I think I may just want to try being a trout bum for a while.