If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I love to hike. I try to go once a week all year round. That means I hike in great weather and also in the cold and the wind and the rain and the heat and the beating sun. I enjoy it and I’m always glad I went after I’m on the trail.
What you don’t know is that almost every single time I have to convince myself to go. I’m a self-employed entrepreneur and I’m a mom of two active teens. So every single time I look at my weekly schedule, I wonder if I should cancel the hike. Can I really give up those work hours? Should I? Especially if I know I’m already giving up work hours to attend boy events that week. It feels selfish and unnecessary.
Every time I do go on the weekly hike I am so very glad I went. Every single time. So I try to go more weeks than not. And I’m very slowly coming to realize that hiking is at least as important as the boy events I make time for each week. It is for my health and my mental well being and one of the few self-care things I do most weeks. It is how I decompress and shed stress. It is how I stay healthy. It is how I stay in good enough shape to do the 6.7 miles without a fuss. It is how I was able to hike the Grand Canyon and how I work towards being able to do it again.
Being outside and having my feet on the trail is important to me. And I need to remind myself of that every week.
