My Next Push
Sierra National Forest
It’s been a long time since being surrounded by the trees and mountains of this beautiful state.
Rachel and I spent last weekend in the Sierra National Forest to celebrate her birthday. This was our first official camping trip together and I gotta say, we make a great camping duo.
Over the miles of hikes, us gazing into the campfire and up at stars, as well as our dips into swimming holes and alpine lakes, I started to think about my birthday. Not the one coming up at the end of August, but the one after that, the one in 2021. The one where I would turn 40.
Now, do I care about turning the “Big 4-0”? Not really. But, I do care about marking it with what I call a “life pushing” event. Something I did to celebrate my 30th.
Back in 2010 while living in Maine, I was ending my first long-term relationship. It was a drawn out break up. At the same time, I was struggling to figure out my career. It was a pretty low point in my life. I woke up one day and had this kernel of the idea that I wanted to ride my bike across the country before I turned 30.
I had about 13 months to make that happen. Little did I know that this idea, this personal goal would turn into a professional project. I co-created and spearheaded The Alabamboo Make & Ride, a cross-country bike tour on bamboo bikes.
This would be my first act in doing and achieving this sort of life pushing event.
We finished our bike ride in San Francisco about a month before my 30th birthday. As we were riding across the Golden Gate Bridge, a rush of excitement overtook my body. I was ecstatic. I was on top of the world. Not just because we rode over 3,000 miles from Alabama to the west coast, but because I reached that goal of pushing my boundaries, my limits on what I could accomplish.
Since then, I’ve become more comfortable pushing myself beyond my physical, mental, and emotional limits. Some examples over the past few years;
+ Bike touring around Iceland
+ Being more vulnerable with those in my life
+ Doing the kinds of trips that started this blog
+ Falling in love
+ Experiencing heartbreak
+ Falling in love again
+ Starting side projects
+ Starting a business
+ Teaching college students
+ Running a 50K trail run
+ Winning my first trail run race
+ Completing a 10 day silent mediation
+ Making close friends
+ Losing close friends
+ Seeing my dad succumb to cancer
It’s now summer 2020. With my new decade approaching, I’d like to welcome it with my next life pushing event, a trip along the John Muir Trail, a 211 mile hike in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, passing through Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.
I’ve invited my nephew, Matthew, to join me. By then, we will be 18 and fresh out of high school. Since he was a young teen, we bonded over our individual camping trips. Our uncle-nephew hang sessions always involved a trip to REI when I visited Virginia to see family. This trip will be our first time experiencing the outdoors together.
I think he’s excited for the JMT and to see the beauty of California for himself. I’m looking forward to getting to know him more on a deeper level as a young man starting his next chapter in life.
Not knowing what the next decade will bring, I’m itching to get back on that saddle and ride that bike. Not my bamboo bike, but the “How much can I push myself?” bike. I haven’t done this lately. I’m eager to get out there in the elements and see what I got, to see how far my mental capacity can influence my physical capacity that ties into my emotional capacity. I want to experience a raw connection to the world as a whole. I want to see where I fit into the coordinates of the universe. I want to see what more I’m capable of. I want to set my bar higher for the next 10 years.
It’s no bamboo bike tour, but who knows, maybe between now and next summer, I’ll cook up another project idea that I can incorporate into my JMT hike. Pogo sticking the JMT perhaps?
