INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN
About a decade ago, we decided to take a detour to the Grand Canyon
on the way home to Louisiana from my summer in the other LA. This was
pre-GPS days and it was a passage into the great wide nothing to get
there, but the windows were down and we let Tom Petty guide us there (on
the iPod tuned in over the RADIO no less). It felt like all the
things Tom always sang about, mostly free. I really came into my own
that summer. I don't know that I ever felt better.
Tom Petty has found his way into the soundtrack of my life since the very beginning. The windows are always wide open. Whether it was on a Saturday being made to clean the house as a family growing up or my sister begrudgingly driving me around, there he was.
He showed up again last week on an insanely winding drive back down after a long weekend at Yosemite. We could just barely catch a signal from a local classic rock station (all of our other devices were useless. You know, nature.) and it was my stretch to drive right as a block of Tom came on and I couldn't help but smile to myself and roll down the window as my friends tucked into their exhaustion. I had really learned a lot about myself that weekend. I don't know the last time I had felt better.
Earlier that week, I started feeling sick brought on by (what I believe) was the anxiety of the unknown. Signing up for a trip like this was definitively not me. So much so that six months prior when the idea came about, I was questioned no less than 10 times if I really meant it. I am not outdoorsy. I have a roughly 10-step skincare regimen (morning and night) and value the comfort of my home and an hour long bubble bath above most other things. I hadn't camped since I was a Girl Scout, which if it happened to be in a tent, there was an indoor option available which I almost always snuck into after everyone else fell asleep. But, I've gotten really used to being out of my comfort zone in the last few months, so why not really go out of it? It took until I had 30 minutes left before I had to head to the airport for me to finally get over my anxiety (OK, ignore my anxiety) because I knew the regret would feel way worse.
We drove from the vineyards of Northern California where the exits are named after friends like Mark West and Kendall Jackson to the towering Sierra Nevada mountains inching closer and closer to the granite formations that had seemed mythic to me. "Holy shit" were probably the only two words that escaped me.
I immediately felt at ease and the anxiety loosen its grip because if, for no other reason, I gifted myself that moment to just be in awe and to feel small and big at the same time and like I checked something off a list I didn't even know was on it to begin with.
I learned lots of things over that long weekend. My limits and when to push past them (more on this later). That you can comfortably sleep in a tent in 40 degrees with the right equipment (thanks to all of the people I went with and their obvious investment in all things REI). Cooking for other people is fun and gratifying. Sitting around a fire with mostly strangers is probably the best way to get to know people (and learn a few things about yourself and other regions). And, probably most importantly, that throwing yourself out of your comfort zone is very uncomfortable (at first), but also freeing and a test of resilience.
I stayed pretty true to my skincare routine with a few minor adjustments and to myself armed with all of the new things I've learned about myself in the last few months. But, I also got to know a new version of myself that I'm not quite sure I would have seen as quickly if I hadn't talked myself down from that anxiety cliff I perched myself on. Maybe I am a little outdoorsy, but I kind of think it's more that I'm wide open.
Tom Petty has found his way into the soundtrack of my life since the very beginning. The windows are always wide open. Whether it was on a Saturday being made to clean the house as a family growing up or my sister begrudgingly driving me around, there he was.
He showed up again last week on an insanely winding drive back down after a long weekend at Yosemite. We could just barely catch a signal from a local classic rock station (all of our other devices were useless. You know, nature.) and it was my stretch to drive right as a block of Tom came on and I couldn't help but smile to myself and roll down the window as my friends tucked into their exhaustion. I had really learned a lot about myself that weekend. I don't know the last time I had felt better.
Earlier that week, I started feeling sick brought on by (what I believe) was the anxiety of the unknown. Signing up for a trip like this was definitively not me. So much so that six months prior when the idea came about, I was questioned no less than 10 times if I really meant it. I am not outdoorsy. I have a roughly 10-step skincare regimen (morning and night) and value the comfort of my home and an hour long bubble bath above most other things. I hadn't camped since I was a Girl Scout, which if it happened to be in a tent, there was an indoor option available which I almost always snuck into after everyone else fell asleep. But, I've gotten really used to being out of my comfort zone in the last few months, so why not really go out of it? It took until I had 30 minutes left before I had to head to the airport for me to finally get over my anxiety (OK, ignore my anxiety) because I knew the regret would feel way worse.
We drove from the vineyards of Northern California where the exits are named after friends like Mark West and Kendall Jackson to the towering Sierra Nevada mountains inching closer and closer to the granite formations that had seemed mythic to me. "Holy shit" were probably the only two words that escaped me.
I immediately felt at ease and the anxiety loosen its grip because if, for no other reason, I gifted myself that moment to just be in awe and to feel small and big at the same time and like I checked something off a list I didn't even know was on it to begin with.
I learned lots of things over that long weekend. My limits and when to push past them (more on this later). That you can comfortably sleep in a tent in 40 degrees with the right equipment (thanks to all of the people I went with and their obvious investment in all things REI). Cooking for other people is fun and gratifying. Sitting around a fire with mostly strangers is probably the best way to get to know people (and learn a few things about yourself and other regions). And, probably most importantly, that throwing yourself out of your comfort zone is very uncomfortable (at first), but also freeing and a test of resilience.
I stayed pretty true to my skincare routine with a few minor adjustments and to myself armed with all of the new things I've learned about myself in the last few months. But, I also got to know a new version of myself that I'm not quite sure I would have seen as quickly if I hadn't talked myself down from that anxiety cliff I perched myself on. Maybe I am a little outdoorsy, but I kind of think it's more that I'm wide open.
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