I have not yet been on the road for three full days and already I’ve encountered a number of glitches. But I’m proud to report I’ve been able to approach those things from a Mary Badass place rather than becoming stressed. I’ve leaned into each difficulty as it arises, seeing it as a challenge I can overcome.

Mary Badass is the trail name I was given when I hiked the Continental Divide Trail five years ago. My first book, which will come out within the year, is called “Meeting Mary Badass” and describes the journey it took for me to get that name. Since then, I’ve done much more adventuring and have two more books in the works, “Becoming Mary Badass” and “Living as Mary Badass.” These first few days of my summer 2025 adventure have affirmed for me I have learned to live as Mary Badass.

First I had to pull over and spend a bit of time ensuring my Internet was put on vacation hold without being charged a fee. I had been told this would be the case but en route I received a call telling me I was going to be charged. I had to make a number of phone calls, including insisting on speaking with the supervisor even when I was told she was the one demanding I be charged. But Mary Badass persisted without becoming unglued and was finally able to prevail.

Then the map app in my car went haywire, rerouting me in a way that would have sent me hours back in the direction I had come in order to get around a small road closure. I knew this wasn’t necessary, but couldn’t figure out how else to get where I needed to go, as when this happened, there was minimal cell service and I couldn’t get the map apps to reload. I got off the highway at the nearest exit and drove until I found an Internet connection.

As I drove on after reconfiguring my route, I noticed my foot kept sticking to the gas pedal in a really unpleasant way. When it started sticking to the break pedal I realized I had stepped in gum. In the heat it was making a mess in my car. I stopped and purchased some nail polish remover to clean up the gum, recognizing that because I had refused to become frustrated, I was open to having a lovely interaction with the young woman at the checkout.

When I got back onto the road I remebered a particularly scary storm on the CDT when I called into the wind, “Is this all you have? Bring it on.” So once again I leaned into the challenges, filling my car as I shouted “I am Mary Badass. Bring it on.”

This seemed to open a deluge of yet more challenges. First was a horrible sound that started coming when I pushed the break pedal. Then I had some stabbing pains in my back and wondered for a few minutes if I was having a heart attack. After back to back traffic for a few hours around Chicago, I was in a rainstorm that made it difficult to see the road. When I tried to send out my sattelite ping that night, I noticed the battery had completely discharged on the device. As if to top this all off, yesterday when I was driving there were two flies in my car that kept landing on my face as I drove! In all of these cases I had to do some problem solving and I think I have at least temporary fixes for everything from cleaning rust off my brake rotors to stretching the muscles in my back, to letting the flies out of my car. In the meantime I am not stressing about any of it.

In the past any one of these things would have moved me to frustration. Because I have done enough work on bringing together my dissociated parts I am now able to make choices on how to respond rather than merely reacting on a hair trigger. I was able to step back in each of these situations and choose to act with humor, curiosity and kindness. I welcomed people wanting to cut in front of me in traffic and noticed how much better if felt to do that than to aggressively try to keep them out. Because I stayed calm, I was open to some lovely conversations with people along the way, from friends I was able to visit to people I interacted with when getting gas. And rather than being absorbed in frustration I have been able to fully enjoy the sights along the way.

It has taken a lot of painful internal work for me to heal the many traumas in my past and reach this place of badassery. Hiking the Florida Trail on crutches with a broken foot helped me solidify these internal changes. Just as I would not have chosen to hike the Florida Trail on crutches, I would not have chosen for my life to have been as difficult as it has been. I can’t change the past and I don’t want to praise the value of a difficult life, but I know there has been value in persisting. Similar to the feeling of self satisfaction I get when I push through the scary, difficult moments all thru hikers experience in order to complete a trail, I now feel a sense of accomplishment at being able to welcome whatever each day brings, knowing the work it took for me to get here has been worth it. Life will surely throw more difficulties my way but I am no longer living in the past, waiting in fear for bad things to happen. Nor am I living in a future I hope will someday save me. I am now living in the present, aware noone can make me feel anything. I am finally in charge of how I feel, and for the moment I am happy to feel like a badass.