The Post You Were Not Expecting
Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes are ahead!
Hello! Long time, no post. For the past few weeks, I haven’t been motivated enough to write about hiking or gush over on-trail life, and here is why. For one, I’ve been incredibly busy with other things, like work and school. I’ve found it hard to get inspired to find content for this blog during seasons of life where hiking can’t be the main priority. And this happens to be one of those seasons where squeezing in an overnight backpacking trip between research paper deadlines and appointments for overdue oil changes just isn’t possible. So, I’ve decided to make some changes.
But first, let me back up a little and put this monologue in reverse to January 2023.
By the middle of the month, I had completed the Foothills Trail and was on a high from living in the woods for five days. I came into off-trail life happy and ready to jump into the last semester of my associate’s degree program. But I wasn’t really prepared for the wave of feelings that would hit me soon afterward. There was a lot of grief and uncertainty during this time, which usually happens to me after a backpacking trip. The feelings of accomplishment and euphoria don’t last and I end up going through a period where I get depressed over leaving the parts of myself that I love the most on the trail.
It’s sort of hard to describe, but driving away from the trailhead, especially after a longer trip, feels like being ripped in half. The insecure, self-hatred-filled Callie leaves while the confident, free-spirited Callie gets left behind. I won’t see her again until the next trip and in the meantime, I’m stuck with the version of Callie that I dislike the most. It’s sort of like post-trail depression where missing the trail is prominent, but more so with an identity crisis mixed in as well.
The following months after January were really hard. My mental health declined and restricting my food intake became the way to cope with the complicated feelings that kept coming in. All the while, I reluctantly swam through the currents of my life. Completing tasks, checking things off my to-do list, and living each day with the black-and-white structure that thrives in my mind became everything to me. On-trail Callie felt thousands of miles away, but I would find glimmers of her in short 30-minute to one-hour trail runs during the week. Then, it was back to reality.
However, over the last several weeks, I have noticed a shift in my mindset. I’m starting to find joy in little moments of my off-trail life where I look around and silently think to myself “everything is good right now.” With help from my awesome therapist, I am working toward discovering off-trail passions that rival hiking/trail-related endeavors so that I can really work toward building a bridge between the two versions of myself. I want to love myself on trail and off. I want to enjoy my life both on trail and off.
Now to the heart of this post.
Hiking and trail running are a part of my life and always will be, but they aren’t everything to me. I created Callie Hikes to share my adventures, document my thoughts, and speak more openly about various outdoor-related content. From my trip reports to my nerdy gear discussions to my mental health rants and everything in between, I have molded this Substack into something I am proud of. However, I think I want to expand and embrace off-trail content as well so that I can start connecting with the other parts of myself that I am getting to know more. Hopefully, this can be a step toward starting to really love who I am through all of my adventures.
I’m still not exactly sure what this is going to look like yet, so please bare with me as I explore! Don’t worry, there will still be plenty of hiking/trail content ahead. I will just also include topics from other parts of my life that mean a lot to me.
Thank you for making it to the end of this vulnerably sappy, but important post. I hope you continue to follow me on this journey.
See you out on the trail…and off the trail too, I guess!
Good for you. Callie. Thanks for being real with your readers.